


the undone and the divine

by jadeddiva



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-28 06:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 41,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When the dragons come, as they must, Sansa is ready for them.” Sansa Stark, and life after the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. begin

 

When the dragons come, as they must, Sansa is ready for them.

She has lived what feels like a thousand lifetimes as Alayne Stone, and she is ready to shed her skin as easily as a snake (the sigil of her new house, because there is no honor in some of the things she has done).  She does not, however, rush to King’s Landing to claim her birthright from the new Targaryen queen.  Nor does she leave the Vale and head north.  She stays where she is, because the bastard daughter of a disgraced court advisor is slightly safer than the trueborn daughter of a dead Northern lord.

…

Sansa relies on the kindness of the people of the Vale, the Lords Declarant who never recognize her even when she’s not quick enough to dye her hair as black as night, and on Sweetrobin; as his caretaker, she is able to go with him to places of refuge, and he clings to her so desperately they are not able to be parted.

With the Eyrie abandoned for the winter, they make their way to Gulltown.  It’s there that she hears news of the dragons, and their beautiful Queen, and when Daenerys Targaryen sends word that they should bend the knee, it’s easy.  After all, House Arryn never declared a side (Sansa made sure of that, whispers in Sweetrobin’s ear to keep them all safe by keeping them here, secluded in the Vale even when he wanted to play the gallant knight riding into battle).  As a result, the Queen seems eager to treat with the Lords who seem just as eager to treat with her.

Anyone is better than a Baratheon king.

It doesn’t hurt that the Vale is well-supplied, not having to feed a standing army.   Their surplus food supply is an attractive prospect to a land stricken by winter.

She is in Lord Grafton’s great hall in Gulltown when her identity is revealed – not by the Queen, or someone who knew her father.  It is her husband, returned from the dead.

Tyrion Lannister walks into the hall with an air of importance, missing a nose and an eye and painting a grisly figure, the walking embodiment of the war they have just survived.  He wears scarlet and black – the colors of the Targaryens – and a dragon on his doublet where once there was a lion, above a hand sigil that makes Sansa shiver. 

“Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” he tells the crowd, and then his  gaze meets hers.  She is standing back from the crowd, behind dear Robert, and her eyes meet his rather than look away.  Though he is more grotesque than before, he is also the most familiar and comforting face that she has seen in years.

“Dear Lord Arryn,” he says, after making his courtesies to the lords and ladies, “You have grown into a strapping young boy.”  This is courtly flattery, for Robert is still as sickly and pale as he ever was, just taller.

“I remember you,” her cousin says, the corners of his mouth turning downwards.  “I wanted you to fly.”

“And such a charming companion,” Tyrion points out, ignoring Robert’s remark and raising his eyes to Sansa’s once more.

“This is the Alayne Stone, the bastard daughter of Petyr Baelish,” someone nearby points out.

“So that’s where you’ve been hiding,” Tyrion says quietly.  Turning towards the assembled lords and ladies of the Vale, he proclaims loudly, “That’s no bastard – that’s my wife.”

The reaction is far more impressive than she expected.  The resurrection of Ned Stark’s daughter – hidden in the Vale all along – is a thing of wonder, of open postulation and naked glances.

“It’s good to see you, husband,” Sansa says, stepping out from behind her dear cousin.  Tyrion reaches for her hand, pressing a kiss against her knuckles.

“You really have no idea how good it is to see you again, Lady Sansa,” he says.  “So many have looked for you and here you have been, hidden in plain sight.”  He pauses.  “The color of your hair doesn’t suit you at all.  We must take care of that.”

Room accommodations are made for the Hand of the Queen, and even though Sweetrobin kicks and screams as is unbecoming of a boy of ten-and-two, Sansa’s things are moved into a room that adjoins Tyrion.  

For the first time in nearly three years, she will spend the night without Sweetrobin nearby.

The thought scares her and exhilarates her in a single breath.

She sits with Tyrion that night in his solar, her hair still wet from the vigorous scrubbing that a newly-acquired lady’s maid has given her.  She feels lighter, and watches as her hair dries red and gold in the firelight. 

“You are welcome to return with me to King’s Landing, so that I might annul this travesty of a marriage,” he tells her.  “You have been imprisoned too long, Sansa, and you should be free. And don’t give me platitudes of how it should be what I wish.  What I wish is for you to speak your mind for once.”

He looks sincere, and even the scar tissue that covers his face doesn’t obscure the meaning in his features.  For the first time in years, someone’s words are spoken to her without any hint of ulterior motive, and she takes them and clings to them, a promise that keeps her steady on this shifting ground.

Tyrion has always been kind to her, and she does not expect that to change now.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” she speaks plainly.  “I can either remain your wife or find someone who wants a tainted one.”

“Yes, the Lannister name –“

“Not that allegiance,” she says.  “Even if the marriage is annulled by the High Septon, I have dishonored you.”

This startles Tyrion, who doesn’t know what to say.  When he does speak, he asks, “I hope it was of your consent.”

“It was.”

_Harry’s hands on her hips, urging her forward, it’s what girls have to do to become better, so Littlefinger says..._

Whoever Sansa Stark was when she left King’s Landing, the girl that returns will never be the same.  There are things she knows now, things that she has done, that have broken her but given her power within the same breath. 

Tyrion studies his wine for a moment.  “Our dear friend Littlefinger – “

_The thought of Littlefinger’s hands upon her body – the one time he tried beyond that kiss - makes her cringe._

“No.  He never got what he wanted.”

_The look of surprise on Littlefinger’s face when she dug the dagger in deep makes her smile._

Tyrion smiles.  “I had wondered what Lord Baelish’s fate was.”  He pauses.  “This war has made us all face our demons.”

Sansa takes a sip of her own wine.  Seven take her, she nods in agreement.

…

Robert refuses to see her the next day, even though she tries to explain to him through the door that she is married and always has been, and even as the platitudes and lies cross her lips, she cannot gain entrance into his chambers.

“Well played, little lady.”

Sansa turns to find Tyrion in the hall behind her, and she blushes furiously.  The things she has learned as Alayne Stone are horrible, and nothing her lady mother would have been proud of – how to use her voice in such a way that a man cannot refuse her requests, how to be graceful and manipulative in a single stroke, things that she watched Margaery Tyrell do years ago, things that she never thought should be done.

And yet she has done them – whispered in the ear of Robert, used her smile and her voice to get her information, used her body to reclaim whatever power was stripped from her with her clothes in King’s Landing all those years ago.

She steps back, horrified at what she has become.  This is not who she ever thought she would be.

“He is a spoiled child,” Tyrion says. “And he’s going to have to listen to someone else speak for once.”

He knocks on the door and demands to be let in, reminding Robert that he is the Hand of the Queen.

Whatever he says in the time that he’s in Robert’s chambers changes the young boy completely.  When he finally lets Sansa in, he clings to her once more, begging apologies.

“At least we are kin,” he tells her, “I am so glad that you are really my family.”

Sansa runs her hands through his hair, grimy with sweat and in desperate need of a wash.  Robert Arryn is part of the family she has left.  The thought does little to comfort her.

...

When his business at Gulltown is done, Tyrion offers to escort her to Winterfell.

“Your brother wishes to see you,” he tells her. 

She knows he speaks of Rickon, found by the redeemed Davos Seaworth.

Her only other brother is not her brother at all but the son of Lyanna Stark.  He is her cousin.  Always a bastard, but now with a legitimate claim to the Iron Throne through his father (or so the Queen says).

Robert stays behind in Gulltown, under the protective care of his bannerman, and the delicious freedom of not having to see to his needs causes Sansa to spur her horse forward – something she’s never done before, not even in her youth.  The wind is crisp and cool on her face and she smiles for the first time in a long time.

“I am glad to see you happy,” Tyrion tells her when she slows her horse to a canter. “You have been robbed of much happiness in this life.”

Sansa says little, biting the inside of her cheek.   She agrees with Tyrion, because it is true – but she has been robbed of more than happiness.  She has been robbed of her family as well, and as they leave the Vale and take the Kingsroad north, that thought turns into a dull ache in the center of her chest.

What she finds there is nothing she remembers.

Burnt remains of her family home, a scattered population, blood smears on walls and death in the air.  Whatever the Boltons did, they have tainted her memory forever.  Even their heads on pikes above the walls does little to assuage her hurt.

At the very least, she remembers a very different wall with a very familiar head, and shivers under her furs.

Rickon is a wild thing, so different from the small brother she remembers.  But he can read and write, and that is something.  How they found a maester to tutor the young boy is something indeed.

Bran is lost to the wild, so the Reeds say, though they won’t stay more.  They look as haunted as Rickon, and Sansa wonders what exactly happened in the North while she was away.

Too many years in the South have turned Sansa’s skin to that of a delicate flower:  if the Vale was cold, then Winterfell is colder still, and the fact that her childhood home brings her such misery with the cold and without her mother and father and Robb and Bran and Arya is too much for her.

She does take time to go to the crypts, for her father’s bones are the only ones that have actually been brought home.  It is there that the tears finally flow freely – tears hidden, because as Littlefinger taught her, tears are not for bastards who know their fate, nor for ladies of the court.  They are for spoiled little girls and boys, and Sansa was once spoiled by love in this very place.

Rickon finds her and curls into her, head on her lap, letting her stroke his hair.

Tyrion finds them hours later, and if he thinks anything of her red-rimmed eyes, he does not say.

“Take me to King’s Landing,” she tells him later that night.  “Whether or not you keep me as your wife is a different matter.  Just take me away from here.”

“Of course,” he says.  He stands before her, looking uncomfortable, like he wants to touch her and make her feel better.  He’s always been so kind, so she presses a kiss against his cheek before retreating to her quarters.

…

Their party is a royal one, so the lords and ladies of the land do their best to entertain them despite the waning winds of winter that choke the growth of the land.  Sansa hears that it is warmer further south; Dorne has never appealed to her the way it does as she rides her horse along the Kingsroad, winter seeping into her veins.

She is less of a Stark now than she ever was.

They stay at the houses of lesser lords, names that she remembers her Septa making her recite in youth (it feels forever and a day ago).  They treat Tyrion with wary concern, but her they treat with utmost respect.  They make noises about the fate of her family, her parents and her sister and her brothers.  They want to ask about Jon Snow, but they never do.  They want to ask her everything, but with a smile and a delicate tilt of her head, she makes it known that she is always too tired from the road to answer their questions.

Alone in her bedchamber, Sansa strips and studies herself in the mirror.  She has grown inches and breasts, and even though she can’t see them she knows there are still silvery scars that fall across her back, courtesy of the King and his guards.  There is nothing here of the girl who left Winterfell all those years before.  The girl that looks at her in the mirror is not the girl who once had soft eyes and a soft heart.

The girl that stares back looks her straight in the eye.  She will wear the clothes of a lady but she is no lady.  There is something in her, feral and fierce and untamed, that has been created over time, with each break of trust, each movement as a pawn in the game of thrones.    She may not have much honor, but what she has done has been to save others.

She fears no one but herself.

She is more of a Stark now than she ever was.

...

“I know what happened to my family,” she tells Tyrion one night, after they stop to treat with yet another minor lord.  “I need to know what happened to yours.”

Tyrion raises his eyebrows – she knows him well enough to know that his next move, taking a sip of his wine, is him stalling for him instead of telling her what she wants.

“Well, my dear, I killed my father, and the Spider killed my uncle,” he says, putting the goblet down.  He counts on his fingers while staring at the ceiling.  “Sweet Cersei chose to throw herself from the Red Keep instead of meet with our Queen’s justice.  I don’t know where Jamie is – he was last seen leaving Pennytree not two years ago with a very tall and slightly disfigured woman who is allegedly Brienne of Tarth, but I haven’t heard anything since then.  Perhaps they opened an inn somewhere.”

“Tommen? Myrcella?” The fact that the most offensive Lannisters are come doesn’t rattle Sansa in the least – they should be in the seven hells for all that they did to ruin her and everything they touched.  But the littlest Lannisters – nothing bad should ever come of children.

Nothing like what happened to her own family.

“Myrcella is in Dorne, and I don’t see her being returned.  With no mother or father, and no kin that is claiming her, she is better off there. I hear the Prince has taken a shine to her, though she won’t marry Trystane Martell in the end.  And Tommen...Tommen is at Highgarden with Margaery Tyrell.”

Sansa is surprised at this development, and doesn’t do a good job masking it on her face.

“Apparently putting yourself between several Unsullied soldiers and a young boy endears you to our Queen,” Tyrion adds.  “Margaery seems quite taken with the lad, and I hear he and his cats enjoy the gardens of Highgarden.   Their marriage has been annulled, of course, but the Tyrells were kind enough to take him on as a ward.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Sansa says, because she did wonder what happened to Margaery as well.  As much as she distrusted the Tyrells, she did like Loras and Margaery.

“The Tyrells are not to be trusted – or they weren’t, rather, when their father was still alive.  Highgarden has a new lord, and I dare say this one will not turn cloaks as easily.”

“Willas?” Sansa asks.  She remembers Margaery’s promise of marriage, and feels – something.  Missed opportunity?  She’s not sure what she feels, because she feels everything these days and it’s easier to just push it down and away.  Numbness keeps her alert.

“The very same.”  Tyrion presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose.  “My dear Sansa, it would have been so much easier on the both of us if that old woman had sent you to her grandson to begin with but I will be honest – I have quite enjoyed your company these past few weeks.”

Sansa smiles – a slight smile, and Tyrion frowns.

“I hope that one day your smile returns, my lady.”

“I fear that my smile has been lost as well,” Sansa says, downing her wine in a single gulp and extending her cup, asking for more.  “Perhaps the Queen will need a scowling lady-in-waiting.”

“Truthfully, my dear Sansa, you’re not the only one who’s lost her smile.  You will soon see.”


	2. renew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again to Joely_jo and thirddeadlysin for looking it over. Rating is changing to M for future stuff and current implications.

When Tyrion tells Sansa that he has enjoyed her company, it is the truth.  There is a kindness in her eyes when she looks at him that he hasn’t seen before, though he knows she’s more than capable of it, sweet as she is.  Even though Sansa is no more talkative than she was in the early days of her marriage, she is no longer as deferential, and there are times when they are actually able to have a conversation.  Those moments do not last long, for there is much he needs to do and Sansa keeps to herself, but he is grateful for genuine conversation.  It has been too long since he has had someone congenial to talk to.

The Sansa Stark he found in the Vale is not the one that left King’s Landing.  She’s thinner and older and more beautiful – a woman, not a scared little girl.  There is much of her mother in her look, but no matter how great a beauty Catelyn Tully was, Sansa will far surpass her.   There is much of her father in her demeanor – her quietness, her coolness – and in those moments she is less of a maiden fair than a northern ice queen.  He suspects this is less of the product of her heritage and more the product of the last few years of her upbringing: Cersei taught her to be wary, Littlefinger taught her to be coy and calculating, and Sansa has taken their lessons to heart.

Only the strong survive in the game of thrones, and Sansa Stark may outlast them all.

They stop at yet another minor lord’s manor, and he does his requisite song-and-dance for the Queen.  When he retires, hours after discussing matters of state and bending the knee, Sansa is waiting in his solar.

“When we arrive in King’s Landing,” she asks, “what will become of me?”

Her voice is once again the scared little girl who he married all those years ago, and Tyrion sighs.

“I had assumed you would stay there for some time before returning north.  Surely you wish to return to Winterfell?”

Sansa laughs – a bitter laugh, not the laugh of a child.   “My home is gone, and all that ties me to that place is a brother I barely recognize and a name that is not even mine anymore.”   She looks at Tyrion, and she seems so very tired.  “Am I bad sister?” she whispers.

Of course Sansa would worry about duty to her family (it’s the Tully in her).   “You’ve spent the last three years raising one fragile young boy,” Tyrion tells her. “I can hardly blame you for not desiring to raise a miniature wildling.”

“It’s just…he’s all I have.  A Stark must be in Winterfell.  But I could be there, and be haunted by all that I lost.   Rickon won’t remember it, in time.  He wasn’t old enough.  But I will always remember.”  Sansa looks off towards the fire, her thoughts leagues beyond the walls of this room. 

The travesties wrought upon House Stark are, to Tyrion, the greatest travesties of this war.  Ned Stark was an honorable man, and his family deserved better than what became of them.

 “And King’s Landing will be any better?” Tyrion asks.  “The last time you were there--”

“People come and go.  The court will change.  And there may be familiar faces who were kind to me.”

“People come and go, like you said.”  Tyrion sighs.  “But the wretchedness will remain.  King’s Landing will always reek with the scum of humanity, those clamoring to be heard by the Queen.”  Tyrion sighs again, wipes his hand across his brow.  “It is a horrible place, but even flowers grow in the muck.”

“I don’t much like that comparison,” Sansa tells him, pulling her knees up to her chest.  She looks the most relaxed she ever has in his presence, and it considers it a small victory that he trusts her.

“Not you, dear girl,” Tyrion says.  “Daenerys Targaryen will make a fine queen, because she knows how to play the game of thrones.  What she doesn’t know is how to survive in a court in Westeros.  She’s been surrounded by Dothraki and men for too long that being surrounded by women might be difficult.  If you go to King’s Landing, you could help her.  You know how to navigate these situations.  Perhaps you would be an ideal companion for her.”

“She is a Dragon,” Sansa says, like it is all that she needs to say. 

“And the women of King’s Landing are vipers.  Last I checked wolves could kill snakes quite easily.” 

A small smile cracks Sansa’s face.  “Let us hope that is not an exaggeration, my lord.”

Tyrion laughs.  “Of course.” 

He has made his decisions months ago, on his way back to Westeros, that if he ever found her, he would free Sansa from their bonds of marriage.  He knows that her opinion of him will never change, that she would stay with him out of loyalty, but he also knows she has been bound to one man or another for far too long – Joffrey, himself, Baelish and young Robert Arryn.  Tyrion wonders how much more splendid Sansa could become if she was set free.

“When we reach King’s Landing,” he tells her, “I will petition to end this marriage.”

Sansa’s smile fades.  “On what grounds?”

“Oh, the numerous whores I seem to employ,” Tyrion says, pretending to be more jovial than he feels. 

Sansa nods, processing the information.  Her silence makes him worry.

“Unless, of course, you don’t want anyone to assume that we – “

“I don’t mind, Tyrion,” she says, calling him by his name.  She rarely does.  “Thank you, for all the kindnesses that you have given me.”

“You have a beautiful spirit, Sansa,” Tyrion points out, looking away.  “Kindness should always been given to you – it shouldn’t be something you feel you must earn.”

Sansa retires soon after, leaving Tyrion to contemplate his situation.  He would gladly keep Sansa by his side as his wife, but he knows she needs more, and the harsh realities of her early rejection still haunt him.  This new arrangement might work better. 

 _Oh, how time has tempered this lion_ , he thinks.  He’s fond the girl, but not fond enough to keep her trapped (though he might have, years ago...) 

As it turns out, Tyrion is finding that he has much kindness in him when given the opportunity.

Sansa has never been more beautiful than when she is at court.  He hopes that she will blossom here, with this new ruler in a vastly different court, and that it will not be a time of bad memories but rather of new growth.

He hopes.

He writes his petition for divorce to the High Septon that night.

…

As they near King’s Landing, they are stopped by a band of outlaws.  When it becomes obvious that they will not hurt the Hand of the Queen, Sansa takes a breath and lowers her hood.  It is warm in the sun, though snow still rests on the grass as they go South.  Tiny rivers of water stream down the trees as the ice melts, but spring is still far off.

Tyrion addresses the men, and they request that he speak to their leader. 

“Stay here,” he tells Sansa.  The horses are restless, and she sways on her agitated mount.

It is a brief conference.

“My dear Sansa,” Tyrion says, riding back to her.  Alongside him walks a young man with black hair.  “There is a member of this company, a woman who claims to remember your lady mother when she was young.  She will not approach you, as the war has disfigured her, but she would ask you questions.”  He gestures to the young man.  “If you allow it, this man will be her voice.”

Sansa glanced over to the party beneath the trees, where a shrouded figure shaped like a woman sat on a horse with the others.  “She knew Catelyn Stark?”

“Her mother worked at Riverrun – she practically grew up with your mother,” Tyrion says.

“She said you resemble her greatly,” the young man adds.

Sansa glances at Tyrion, who nods.  “I will answer your questions.”   She looks at the shadowed shape of the woman, not the young man, as she talks.  There is a nagging feeling in the back of her head, but she can’t interpret just what the feeling is, or what it means.

“The first is about your family – she wishes to know if you have knowledge of your brothers and sister.”

Sansa takes a deep breath, feeling the familiar chill that extends from her heart through her veins.  “My sister, I have no word of.  My brother Rickon sits in the high hall at Winterfell.  My brother Bran was lost north of the Wall.  My last brother is not my brother, but the son of Lyanna Stark.  He is with the band of soldiers and Free Folk just south of the Wall.”

Tyrion broke the news of what happened with the Wall to her when they first met, and she cannot rectify that the stories of her childhood are real.  It is easier most days to know that Jon is her cousin than to accept that giants walk this land.

Sansa glances up at the woman.  There is no response from the figure.

“My lady wishes to know where you have been during the war.”

“I was hidden in the Vale by Lord Petyr Baelish.  I have been with my young cousin, Robert Arryn, Lord of the Vale and the Eyrie.  My aunt, Lysa Arryn, is no longer with us.”

“A final question, good lady.  Are you well?”

Sansa is taken aback by the question.  “As well enough, I suppose, for I do have my health and my wits, and a brother in the North.”

“Thank you,” the young man says with a smile.  He returns to his party in the trees.

Their party starts once again.  As they leave, a horrible, otherworldly cry rises behind them.  Sansa’s skin crawls with the keening which must be coming from the shadowed woman.

“We should make King’s Landing in a day,” Tyrion tells her, riding alongside her.  But for all her questions, he will not say more about the woman, or her companions, or the reason for her wounded cries.

...

Daenerys Targaryen is nothing that Sansa expected, but she is not sure she knew what to expect at all.

The stories she had heard in the Vale and along the road spoke of a woman, a warrior, with dark eyes and white hair -  Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt.   She was said to be the most beautiful of all, this woman who claimed the throne and brought peace on the back of her dragons.

From what she has learned on their voyage south from Winterfell, all the lords and ladies of the land are eager to swear fealty to the one who has saved them.   It is the hope of many that there will not be a war like that of the Five Kings again, for there is also another heir to the throne – Rhaegar’s son, Aegon, once lost but now returned to claim his right.

And another, farther north, reluctant to claim his heritage.

Daenerys is smaller than Sansa, though older than her, and very beautiful.  She dresses in pale silks from the Summer Lands and wears her hair down, a pale circlet around her head.  She is not officially Queen – not until the coronation, not yet, but she is the undisputed ruler of this land.

Beside her stands a knight whom Sansa recognizes.  “Ser Barristan!” she exclaims as soon as she sees him, and his presence here, with the Queen, puts her mind at ease.  He was always fair and kind to her – the most honorable knight she has known.

“Lady Sansa,” he says, bowing.  Beside him, the Queen smiles.

“It is an honor to meet you, Lady Sansa of Winterfell,” the Queen says.  There is a slight accent to her words, one that speaks of her time in exile.

Sansa does her courtesies, dipping deep towards the floor.  “And you as well, your Grace.”

Next to the Queen is another woman, with dark skin and hair – a Dornishwoman, whom Tyrion introduces as Nymeria Sand, the daughter of Oberyn Martell.  “A true viper, after her father,” he tells Sansa, and Nymeria smiles at the words. 

There is another man who hangs back, but he makes his courtesies to Sansa as well. 

“Ser Jorah Mormont, of Bear Island,” he tells her.  He meets her eyes, and then looks away.

Sansa remembers, somewhere in her distant memory, something about a Mormont who was exiled by her father, and she wonders if this is the same man.  She smiles, though he is not looking at her.

”My nephew is not here,” the Queen tells her.  “He has decided that he wants to learn how to hawk, since he was never given the opportunity before.”  The queen purses her lips.  “I am worried I will be far too indulging to his whims.”

The Queen turns, and they follow her.  Gone are all the Baratheon stags and the general feeling of malaise that saturated the hall during Joffrey’s reign.  Instead, there are scarlet Targaryen dragons on banners that, for some reason, make the room feel bigger.  Or maybe it’s the lack of weary citizens and a corrupt Kingsguard.  Ser Barristan wears the white, but there are no other guards save for Dothraki, loyal enough to their _khaleesi_ to cross the Narrow Sea.

“I have heard much about you, Lady Stark,” the Queen says as they walk.  “My Hand thinks highly of you and your House. My advisors also tell me of your family, and their honorable nature.  I am so terribly sorry for what has happened to your family.  I understand all too well what it is like to be one of the few left of a House.”

Sansa does not know what to say – her normal platitudes fail her in the wake of such kindness – and she does not have to say much.  At that moment, Aegon Targaryen arrives home from his excursion.

Aegon is tall and thin, with the pale hair of his father and the olive skin of his mother.  He strikes a commanding picture, though his eyes immediately fall on Sansa.  She dips down to the floor once more.

“Lady Sansa, of House Stark,” Tyrion introduces.

“It is an honor, Your Grace,” Sansa intones before rising.   There is little emotion on the young prince’s face, though his jaw seems tight as he looks at her.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Sansa,” Prince Aegon says.  He turns his attention away from her, and Sansa feels herself relax. 

With a smile, they are dismissed from the Queen’s presence.

Her rooms are adjacent to Tyrion’s, and they share a small sitting room and an even smaller dining room.  She does not mind this, despite the apparent divorce proceedings, because she has been sleeping uneasily, and knowing that the only person left in King’s Landing that once protected her is close does much to ease her weary heart.

“How does King’s Landing suit you, Sansa?” Tyrion asks that night, as they eat in their small dining room.

Sansa thinks for a moment before answering.  “It’s different, and in a good way,” she says.  “I will admit that many of my fears were assuaged when I saw Ser Barristan.”

“A loyal knight of the Kingsguard if there ever was one,” Tyrion agrees, “and an honorable man.  He lends much to Her Grace’s credibility.”

“She seems lovely,” Sansa says, “and I feel that she knows how to rule.”

Tyrion laughs as he reaches for his cup.  “From what I have seen in the East, Sansa, you are right about that.  I hope we have fewer problems with this ruler than we did the last several.”

…

Sansa knows her way around the grounds, and she often wanders in the gardens.  Winter has been kinder here than at Winterfell, and while she misses the snow and ice of her home in the North, she finds that winter is no less beautiful here.

There has been a flurry of activity in recent days, including fittings for new dresses.  She has grown since she’s been in the Vale, and when Tyrion suggested new clothing, she hesitated briefly before she agreed.

“I will repay you,” she says uneasily, because she doesn’t know how she will do it.  Winterfell is in shambles, and she has never had any money of her own.  All her needs have always been taken care of, and suddenly her decision to stay here seems fraught with problems.

“Sansa,” Tyrion tells her, “all of the gold in Casterly Rock is mine, and I will give you enough to ensure that you will never want for anything.”

All of the gold in Casterly Rock became Tyrion’s at the end of the war.  Most of it has been forfeited to the crown to pay for the Lannister crimes, but the amount that remains, Sansa has heard, is more than enough to allow Tyrion to live comfortably.

The dissolution of their marriage comes through the day after they arrive in King’s Landing, and Sansa is surprised to find the Queen’s signature as well as the High Septon’s.

“But I am no longer yours to worry about,” Sansa presses, feeling color rise in her cheeks.

“Sansa, you may not be my wife but I will do my best to care for you,” Tyrion says.  “To speak plainly, you have no father and no older brother, and someone needs to make sure that your next marriage contract is taken care of accordingly.  I am the right age to be an older brother to you, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

Sansa nods, and allows Tyrion to order dresses for her. 

She tries very hard not to remember their brief marriage and their disastrous bedding, though it is impossible to not fall back into the rhythms of her former life while she’s here.   She goes to the hall during the day, to hear the petitioners, and she dines with the Queen or Tyrion whenever requested.  She does not go to the Godswood, or the Sept of Baelor, however.   

Like the North, the gardens here are quiet and peaceful, the only sound the steady trickle of water that flows from the melting snow and ice.  The train of her dress is damp, but Sansa cannot bring herself to leave this peaceful place.

It is here that Prince Aegon finds her.

“I am sorry to bother you, my lady,” he says, standing back.  She is near a frozen fountain, watching the melt water carve paths on the ice. 

“It is no bother, Your Grace,” she says, because it is not.  “These are your gardens.”

The Prince laughs.  “So they are, I am told..”  He draws closer, and she feels a flutter – of fear? – in her stomach.  She thinks it is his blond hair, which in this light shines brighter and makes her think of Joffrey.

She’s done a very good job of not thinking of him these days. 

“Do you look like her?” the prince asks suddenly.  Sansa immediately know of whom he speaks.

“No. My – Jon, he resembles the Starks.  I look like my mother, and she was a Tully.”

Prince Aegon nods.  “I’m sorry for asking, Lady Stark.  There is little I know about my father except what I was told by my advisors and my foster-father, and there’s much I wish to understand.”

Sansa remains quiet.  She knows nothing save stories and hushed whispers, because the North remembers and what they remember, she thinks, is quite possibly very different from what happened.

“I do not know much, Your Grace – I was born after the war,” she says.

Prince Aegon nods.  “Of course, Lady Sansa.  I just wondered - if your aunt looked like you, I can see why my father stole her away.”

The prince leaves Sansa in a state of surprise and shock, and she stays by the fountain for an unreasonably long period of time, until her fingertips grow cold and her nose feels like ice.

She studies herself in the mirror carefully that night.  She does not see much except her own face when she looks, though she knows her hair is quite lovely.

She is quiet at dinner until Tyrion finally asks what troubles her so.

“Prince Aegon thinks I’m beautiful,” she says, reaching for her cup.

“And you do not think such about yourself?” Tyrion asks skeptically.

“I have not thought much about it, to be honest,” Sansa admits.  “I have been trying so hard to stay hidden that I have not thought about what I look like.  A base-born girl cannot be vain.”

Tyrion takes a drink from his cup, and places it back on the table.  “You are very beautiful, Sansa Stark, and you must be careful.  Your beauty can be a gift, or a curse, or a weapon, but you should never let others take advantage of you because of it.”  Tyrion pauses.  “Nor should you take advantage of others.”

Tyrion’s words linger in Sansa’s ears late into the night, and when she wakes up to study her face in the mirror again.  There is a prettiness to her features that reminds her so much of her mother, and she wonders if people have taken advantage of her because of this.  She knows, for a fact, that Littlefinger tried.

But has she taken advantage of others?

In the darkest nights when she can’t sleep, she thinks of poor, dear, dead Harry who loved her so fiercely (he loved Alayne, she tells herself, not Sansa, because he never knew her to be anyone else).  She knows he thought she was pretty – pretty enough to bed, at least – and if her hand slips between her thighs when she thinks about him and their time together, she no longer feels any sense of shame for that.  She is nearly eighteen and she has lain with a man before.  There are things that she wants, now, things that she needed that made her return to Harry beyond the first time.

Harry’s willingness makes her wonder if it would be possible, once more...

Perhaps that is what Tyrion meant about taking advantage of men with her beauty.

It’s certainly something to think about.

 

...

The next day, Jon arrives.  He brings with him Ghost and a crannogman, Howland Reed, whom Sansa heard her father speak of with great admiration.  They have a private audience with the Queen for some time.

Sansa is summoned to the Queen’s chambers at midday, and on her way she passes the crannogman, who stops her.

“I knew your lord father,” he tells her, and she smiles. 

“He spoke fondly of you,” she says, and it is his turn to smile.

“You have his strength,” Howland Reed tells her, “but you have your aunt’s eyes.  She was fearless, as are you.”

Sansa is still taken aback when she enters the Queens chambers.  The tension in the room is thick, though Ghost cuts through it as he leaves his place beside Jon and comes to her, nudging her hand so that she may pet him.

“The Starks and their direwolves,” the Queen says with a small smile.  “I have heard much of this. I have not seen you with your wolf, Lady Sansa.”

Sansa continues to pet Ghost, who leans into her as she scratches behind his ears.  He’s so much bigger than Lady ever was.  “No, your Grace – she died many years ago.”  The feel of Ghost’s fur under her fingertips makes her miss Lady more than ever.

“I am sorry,” the Queen says.

Jon looks around awkwardly from the corner of the room.  His mouth, which was always downturned, looks even more so now, and there is a sadness that lingers in his eyes.  Jon was never a happy child, and Sansa wonders what the life of a bastard is truly like. 

“Hello,” she says to Jon, who is clearly uneasy with all this attention placed on him.   Jon nods stiffly in response.

The Queen speaks.  “Howland Reed has just confirmed the story of Jon’s birth to Lyanna Stark, as he was there with your father when he found both Lyanna and her child,” she says.  “I have acknowledged him as my nephew, son of Rhaegar Targaryen.”  She stops, as if looking to Jon for approval.  He nods, and looks away, walking towards the window.

“Jon has already refused to be considered a Targaryen,” the Queen continues, “and has refused my offer to be Aegon’s successor.   Instead, I have another proposal: I will raise Jon to Lord Stark, and he will reign as Lord Protector of the North until your brother, Rickon, comes of age.” The Queen pauses.  “You will still be Lady Stark of Winterfell until you choose to marry again.”

Sansa’s eyes fall to Jon, whose face has turned to gaze out of the window.    “Jon will do well with Rickon,” she says, unsure of what else to say.  What she wants to ask is what will happen to her.

The Queen has answers for everything.

“I do not intend to follow the behaviors of my predecessors.  I intend to appoint a small council that will reflect all of Westeros.  I would have you stay here, Lady Sansa, in King’s Landing, and serve me.”

Sansa is startled.  “My lady, you cannot possibly mean that I should serve on the small council – I am but a girl – “

“But you are a Stark,” the Queen says.  “There must be a Stark in Winterfell, and I would see a Stark in the small council.”

 “There must be others – “

“There will never be anyone better to represent the values of the North,” the Queen says firmly. 

“I am but a girl, I have no – “

“The stories from the Vale paint a picture of a strong, capable woman,” the Queen insists. “The lords there know who kept them from war, and it is not Robert Arryn.”

Ghost presses into Sansa, insistent that she continue to pet him now that her fingers have stilled.

“I will leave the two of you.  You have much to discuss.” 

When the door is finally shut behind the Queen – his aunt – Jon turns from the window.   The way that he holds himself – the way that it must be for him, now, to learn that he has never been Ned Stark’s bastard but the son of Rhaegar Targaryen, the son of Lyanna Stark, the bastard son of a prince – makes Sansa want to cry.

She moves towards him quickly and wraps her arms around him.  She has never hugged Jon before, and he was closer to Arya, but save for Rickon, he is the only family that she has left.

Jon pulls her closer – he is barely taller than her, she is so tall – and she can feel the silent sobs that rack his body.  She doesn’t even know how to begin to comfort him, so she says nothing instead of sweet platitudes.  

“I’m sorry,” he says after some time, wiping the tears from his face.  Ghost is at his side now, a steady reassuring figure, and Sansa misses Lady all the more now.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.  Jon laughs, weakly, and shrugs his shoulders.

“I will not lie to you, Sansa – the only thing I ever wanted for so long was to be a Stark – not a Snow, not some bastard.  And now I have the name– but at what cost?”

“There is no cost that you must pay,” Sansa tells him.  “You are a Stark, and always have been.  You were raised by my father and just because you are not his son doesn’t mean you were any less important to him.  We all know how dearly he loved your mother.”

Jon nods, reaching down to pet Ghost.  “I know, and...this arrangement that the Queen suggests...Sansa, do you want to stay here?”

“Winterfell is no longer my home,” she says.  “I feel no affection for it.  The North is not my land any longer.  I think I might like it at court – it is a gentler court than previous, and I am treated well here.”

Jon looks uncomfortable.  “And my place at Winterfell?”

Sansa sighs.  “You have always been a Stark, Jon.  This is no different.”

“You will always be welcome to come back to Winterfell – it is your home as well.”

Sansa smiles. “Thank you.”

They all eat in the hall that night – the Queen, the Prince, Jon, and the other small council members like Nymeria Sand, who looks at Jon like he is the meal instead of the food on her plate.  The brothers are at first wary of each other, but they are able to engage in conversation about dogs and swords and the Queen smiles over her cup at them as they talk in low tones to each other.


	3. kindle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is my birthday, so I give you Sansa X Willas. <3

3.

Jon agrees to stay for the coronation, and to even participate – as a member of House Stark, not House Targaryen.  It’s no great matter, because when he is not sitting quietly with Sansa in her sitting room, Ghost at their feet, he’s with the prince or the queen.  They seem genuinely interested in getting to know him, and it makes Sansa happy to think that there is more family for Jon than just her and Rickon, sorry souls that they are. 

One day, they break their fast together.

"Howland Reed told me a story about my mother," Jon tells Sansa.  "At the tourney at Harrenhal.  Some squires were set to torment him, but she ran them off and then the next day, dressed in too large armor, rode into the lists and delivered her final blow."

There is a small, smug smile on Jon's face, and Sansa can't help smile too.  "She sounds like Arya," Sansa says, and Jon nods.

"That's what they've always said," he agrees.  "But hearing it from someone who knew her - anything about her life..." Jon stops.  "Aegon asks me about her—what I know."

"His life was forfeit when your father and your mother met," Sansa tells him quietly.  "Robert Baratheon would never let the insult stand, and I don't think your father would have let your mother leave his side. Of course he wishes to know."

Sansa is learning bits and pieces of the story of Jon's parents, mostly from court rumors, and what she is learning is a patchwork tale of sudden, passionate love, unrelenting belief in prophecy, and misplaced trust in fate.

She wonders what it would be like to be suddenly, passionately in love with another person.  Sansa remembers when she first came to King's Landing, so young and so ready to love Joffrey.  But now she is older, and the parts of her that should be able to love feel rusty and broken.  She does not think herself capable of love, not anymore.

...

Soon, the queen’s ideas for the small council trickle down through her advisors and out to the protectors of each region.  The response of the North to Sansa’s appointment arrives in a flurry of ravens that confirm what the queen suspected: they are happy with Sansa representing them (even if she rarely feels like a true Northerner) and they are more than willing to welcome Jon back to Winterfell as a Stark.

She knows there are notes of kindness, quiet recollections about Lyanna Stark that arrive with the ravens and which Jon sometimes shares with her, but mostly keeps to himself.   It moves Sansa that the Northern lords would do such a kindness to ease Jon’s weary heart.  More than anything else, it demonstrates how strongly the Starks are thought of in that cold, cold land.

The other houses start to send the names of their representatives: as well as Sansa from the North and Nymeria Sand of Dorne, there is Yohn Royce from the Vale, some minor Lefford from the Westerland, Brynden Blackwood (the eldest son, a strange turn) from the Riverlands, one of the younger Peasbury sons from the Stormlands and Garlan Tyrell from the Reach. 

Garlan’s appointment makes Sansa happy, for she remembers the kind words he said to her upon her wedding to Tyrion, even if she wasn’t so receptive to them at that time.  She remembers his wife as well, a quiet though lovely lady, and the thought of female companionship beyond that of Nymeria Sand is welcomed.

The Dornishwoman has a peculiar habit of finding Sansa when she is alone, and their conversation, while stilted, is still friendly.  For all of her intensity, Nymeria Sand is not as intimidating as Sansa expected.

“Why do you seek me out?” Sansa asks one day, as they walk through the corridors of the Keep.

“You remind me of my younger sisters,” Nymeria says.  “The little ones, the ones with fire in their belly and steel in their spine.  I miss their company.”

Sansa laughs.  “You remind me of my sister.  She was always so fearless, just like you.”

“Why do you speak of her like you will not meet again?” Nymeria asks.  “You have not seen her bones.  If she is fearless like me, then I do not doubt she has found some way to survive.”

Sansa sighs.  “I would like to think that, but King’s Landing was not a kind place to us then.”

It is Nymeria's turn to laugh.  "If I were in King's Landing when you were, do you think I would have survived?"

Sansa does not hesitate.  "Yes.  And so you think that Arya has survived?"

"Never give up on the fearless ones, little wolf," Nymeria says.  "After all, you are still standing and you are more fearless than you think."

...

The coronation is a grand affair, and the Great Houses arrive for days.  

House Martell arrives first.  Princess Arianne of Dorne, resplendent in silks of red and orange, is here to greet the Queen.  She is joined by her cousins, bastard daughters of Oberyn Martell, all of them eager to meet the Mother of Dragons. 

Other houses arrive too: the Manderlys and Karstarks and other Northern lords who seem more grateful to see Sansa alive and well than to see the queen; the lords of the Storm Lands, the lords of the Riverlands, the lords of the Vale.  Yohn Royce, who will sit on the small council, apologizes for not recognizing Sansa sooner. He also thanks her, though she feels uncomfortable with the honor. 

Sansa’s uncle arrives with his wife and son.  There is a small reunion where he tells her how much she looks like her mother, and she cries because his wife is so kind (so embarrassed and pitiful and guilt-stricken, this Frey girl).

There are houses that do not come.  House Frey was not invited, so she has heard, for Queen Daenarys does not take kindly to those who violate the hospitality of their hall.  House Lannister is now broken and divided, and the West still has yet to decide on a representative to the small council.

It is the day before the coronation that House Tyrell and much of the Reach arrive.

Sansa watches sharply, looking for Margaery even though she knows the girl will not be there.  Instead, there is her brother Garlan, whom she remembers being so brave and gallant.  He remembers her as well, and his wife is kind in her greetings.  Alerie Hightower, Margaery's mother, is there too, and she embraces Sansa warmly. 

And finally there is the Lord of Highgarden himself, Willas Tyrell, who is nothing and everything like she once imagined him to be.  He walks with a pronounced limp, leaning heavily on a cane.  He bows to the Queen, and then to Sansa.

He is taller than her, though hunched because of his leg, yet his hair and eyes are the same as that of his siblings.  Unlike Ser Loras, he has a beard, and his hair is not as full of curls but rather more restrained, though it still falls close to his neck.  He is as handsome as she always wished, in those dark nights of her soul, and the knowledge of this is a blow to her stomach.

“I have heard much of you, Lord Tyrell,” Sansa tells him.  He looks surprised, so she quickly adds, “Your sister spoke highly of you.”

 _Awkward and clumsy_ , she thinks, wishing that she had held her tongue.  She is once again that young girl, telling Loras Tyrell about a red rose that he has clearly forgotten.  

“Of course,” he says. “I’m sorry, Lady Sansa, you must forgive me.  You and Margaery were quite close.”

There is a moment of realization where she understands that if she were younger, she would be heartbroken that he did not remember his sister’s plan.  She thinks, for a moment, that it is foolish of her to remember such a ridiculous dream, but she remembers how strongly she clung to that dream – of Highgarden, barges, and a puppy, and above all Willas Tyrell saving her from Joffrey’s wrath – and she can’t hate herself for being fourteen and needing to believe in something.

But she is older now.  She smiles placidly. “Of course.  Please express my fondness for your sister should your letters reach her before my own.” 

She looks past Willas Tyrell to the next lord – a green-apple Fossoway, followed by a Florent.   She extends her hand in greeting and the Tyrells move further into the Keep.

It is only later that she allows herself to feel something.  She has gotten so good at being numb that feeling something - anything - is foreign to her.

The only problem is, Sansa is unsure if her feelings come from remembering her long lost dream, or the warmth that she felt when Willas Tyrell first looked at her.

…

King’s Landing has changed much since Willas Tyrell was a young boy, though the Targaryen dragons that grace the rooftops are very much the same.

The journey has been taxing, and his presence in court is tolerated more than his father’s would have been.  House Tyrell played both sides against the middle, and the support they gave to Dorne when Aegon and then Daenerys Targaryen came does little to assuage his father's thirst for glory, Seven bless his soul.

Regardless, it is with great appreciation and friendship that the Queen welcomes him.  It is odd to be here before the Queen, in court, as lord of his house, but he can do no worse than the Lords of Highgarden before him.

The hall is stifling, and before he decides to make the climb to their rooms in the Maidenvault, where the noble visitors are being housed, he decides to go out into the gardens.  There is no snow, but the air is cool and clean and there is a thin layer of ice on the surface of all the reflecting pools.

Willas is surprised to find the garden occupied.

Sansa Stark – no longer a lion, just a wolf – sits by the large fountain in the middle of the small garden.  She wears a cloak of dark grey, with a collar of white fur.  Her hair falls over her shoulder, and she appears deep in thought, skimming her fingers across the surface of the fountain like she is in a dream.

Willas finds himself at a loss for words.  He had felt so horrible for not immediately responding when she made the remark about finally meeting him.   In the course of everything that has happened, it was just another of his grandmother’s failed plans, albeit an intrusive one.  He has enough modesty to think that one day he can find his own bride that wishes to be with him not because of home or title or even, in this case, the promise of security.

He feels worse for the look that crossed her face when he failed to respond appropriately but then again, he tends to notice small things like that.  Standing taller than the queen, resplendent in robes of silver and blue, she seemed to close like a flower in a cold snap.  Any openness or warmth was quickly gone before his response could be given.

He feels guilt for reasons he’s not sure he understands.

“Good evening, Lady Stark,” he calls to her, so as to not frighten her.

“It’s just Lady Sansa, Lord Tyrell,” she says, looking up from the fountain.  “I would prefer that.”

“Of course.”  Willas feels as if he must make amends somehow.  “You will forgive me, Lady Sansa, for not remembering earlier.  Much has happened since those days.”

His father has died, his brother is dead, he is now a Lord and he is very much unprepared to handle having a Lannister bastard in his household, albeit one as sweet as Tommen (and those cats have definitely helped the spider problem).

Sansa smiles – a small smile that doesn’t meet her eyes, so very different from the smile she gave his family upon their greeting.

“And you must forgive me, Lord Tyrell, for holding on to such a childish memory.  But you see, your family was kind to me when no one else was, and took me in, and gave me hope that I could be safe in Highgarden.”   She runs a finger along the ice that covers the fountain.  “That thought delivered me through many long nights.”

There is a look of sadness on Sansa’s face as she turns away, fingers tracing patterns against the frozen surface.  She is graceful  - so very graceful – and Willas hates himself for not remembering earlier, for making her feel like she was being childish.

“I understand,” he says, uncertain of what to say.  “I am glad that we are able to finally meet.”

What Willas remembers of his family’s hastily-made plan is offense at being used as a bargaining chip.  As the news came out of King’s Landing about how miserable Sansa Stark was, he came to see it less as a way to secure a place in the kingdom and more as a way to save a young girl.

And when she was wed to the Imp, he felt dismay that the poor child could not be saved.

The woman who sits before him is no poor child.  Indeed, there is nothing childish about her in form and figure, and her manners are polite – too polite, like Margaery’s. 

He feels as if he should be wary of her, even if she looks so serene.

“Yes,” Sansa says finally.  She stands and draws her cloak tighter around her.  “Good night, Lord Tyrell.”

He bows, feeling foolish because if she is the Lady of Winterfell and he is the Lord of Highgarden, then they are near equal. 

“Good night, Lady Sansa,” he says, and he wonders if she hears him at all.

When he finally makes it to his rooms, he steps into their sitting room to find his mother and Garlan still awake.

“Where did you run off to?” Garlan asks, handing him a glass of wine as he sits down.

“The gardens.” He takes a sip, and pauses.  “I found Lady Stark there.”

“What a lovely girl,” his mother says.  “I do so wish that things had been better for herself and her family, but she seems to have made it out in the end.”

“I felt horrible forgetting that she was once to come to Highgarden,” Willas tells them, the wine loosening his tongue.  "It seemed to matter to her."

“And you should, brother – she is a fine fair maiden, Lady Stark, and she would have born you litter of red-haired kits,” Garlan says with a laugh. 

"Enough of that," Willas says, heading towards the door of his chamber.  "I am in no mood for you to marry me off."

As he lies in bed that night, he wonders about Sansa.  He has heard much of her, first from Margaery and his grandmother, then from Garlan.  When she was found unscathed in the Vale, stories came to the Reach of her bravery and her strength.  He does not think they are exaggerations.

He also does not think she would have been the same had she come to the Reach when his grandmother schemed all those years ago.

...

Queen Daenerys decides that all of the noble houses will crown her, so as to confirm that's she is chosen by all of Westeros. The day before the coronation, Sansa finds Willas Tyrell in the doorway of the throne room.  On impulse, she stops.

Foolish daydreams aside, she has enjoyed sitting with him and the other lords over the last few days, as the Hand discusses greater plans for Westeros beyond the small council.   Whereas other lords tend to be aggressive, Willas has been level-headed.  His suggestions are well-spoken, and his intentions clear.   Sansa admires how noble he is, and how easily the other lords have come to defer to his opinion.

It makes her wish he were staying in King's Landing as well.

"It will be lovely," she says, and Willas turns to look at her.  Beyond them, scarlet and black banners are raised high into the air, and tapestries that tell the story of Aegon's conquest cover the walls.   The queen wants her legacy remembered as she first sits the throne.

"Of course, Lady Sansa," he tells her.  "Quite novel, too, having all the great houses crown her." 

There is a look of unease on his face, and Sansa does not need to guess at the cause.

"When we crown the Queen, perhaps we should already be on the dais," Sansa says.  "We could walk in pairs before the ceremony starts, instead of a grand procession."   Changing the procession means that Willas will not have to feel rushed.  He does not walk fast at the best of times, and she cannot imagine how he might feel if under the scrutiny of all present.

"What would the Queen think of the arrangement?" Willas asks.  Sansa smiles.

"I do not think the Queen will have strong opinions, but I am dining with her tonight and shall ask for this arrangement."

Tension leaves his body with a sigh. "You are very thoughtful, my lady," he says.

"The deed is not done, Lord Tyrell," Sansa cautions, but she is right in believing it to be an easy move.  With Tyrion's help, she convinces the Queen easily.  Buoyed by this victory, she dispatches a note to Willas's chambers immediately.

When a note returns almost as quickly, she is surprised but she hurries to open it.

_Lady Sansa_

_I am eternally indebted to you for your help in appeasing my vanity.  My sister spoke highly of your kind heart, and I find that she was quite right._

_Willas Tyrell_

If Sansa keeps the note, folded into a tiny square and tucked into her jewel chest, she does not think it is the business of anyone.

...

There is a feast, with dancing and drums and music that Sansa hasn’t heard before, music from across the Narrow Sea that sinks into her bones and makes her heart soar.  

She watches others dance and on many occasions takes her own turn around the room, feeling happy and free for the first time in a long time.  She is safe and she is young.  There is no one here that will hurt her, or her remaining family.  Across the room, Jon talks with other members of the small council.  He is here with her as well, a remaining link to her family. 

Sansa takes another deep drink of wine, and smiles as the others dance past her.

Sansa takes a seat on the dais, watching the crowd of merrymakers.  Through them, on the other side of the hall, she can see Willas Tyrell conversing with a lord from the Reach.  He is animated in his speech, and there is color in his face that must be from drink.

She has been watching him.  What at first was a vague curiosity has become something more.  It burns low in her stomach, this feeling of – something.  When she looks at Willas Tyrell, she sees a man not yet thirty, with kind eyes and a comely face and all the features she once thought attractive in his brother, Seven guard his soul.  

But he is different from Loras as she is – was – from Arya; from what she has witnessed these past days, he is kind but not overzealous, measured and patient, and humble.  It is this humility and honor that makes her wish that things had been different, that she had left King’s Landing and that they had been married.  

She thinks she would have liked sharing his bed.

The thought startles her out of her stupor, and she realizes that she’s been staring at him, and he has noticed.  She takes a sip of wine, and looks away, flush burning high on her checks.

“Little wolf,” a voice says in her ear, and Sansa does not have to turn to know its Nymeria.  She does not mind the Sand Snake, and finds her lack of decorum pleasing in most situations.  But the Lady of Winterfell staring at the Lord of Highgarden across a hall is not most situations.

“You find him attractive,” Nymeria says, sitting down gracefully beside her.   She pours more wine into Sansa’s cup.

“I find him interesting,” Sansa informs her. 

“I know that you were to marry him,” Nymeria presses.  “A pity.”

“I do not regret my marriage to Lord Tyrion.”  Sansa attempts to change the topic, but in the short time she has known the Dornishwoman, she knows that Nymeria is not easily dissuaded. 

“He is comely, Lord Tyrell.  And honorable.  You could not pick a better lover,” Nymeria says nonchalantly.  Sansa starts, and puts her cup down.

“No, little wolf, I have no knowledge of that man, but I do know that it should not be a problem to take what you want.”  Nymeria’s smile is wolflike in its own way, and in a flash of silk and skin, she is gone, leaving Sansa to ponder her words.

Sansa had taken one lover, out of necessity, with Littlefinger watching and encouraging. And while she didn’t mind Harry – enough to seek him out twice more, eager to feed the new hunger instead of her – the thought of him reminds her of the taste of moon tea, and she does not find either of them pleasant.

Her lady mother would have cringed at Sansa taking a lover like they do in Dorne and the Summer Isles, and Sansa still cringes at her audacity and brazen behavior, but in the eyes of the royal court she is already a woman wedded and bedded, so she does not think it her position to fear what they think anymore.

She looks at Willas Tyrell, handsome in the candlelight across the hall, and wonders.

An idea is often the worst thing imaginable.

…

“I do believe that Lady Stark cannot take her eyes from you,” Garlan tells him.  He smells of wine and rests too heavily on Willas’s shoulder, and his words confirm what was already suspected.

He has noticed the eyes of Sansa Stark following him more than once this week, at the coronation feast and afterwards, and he accounts it to a childish crush of some sort, one that must be related to their brief discussion in the garden.  But he finds that he follows her eyes back, and watches when she is not looking, and finds that there is nothing childish at all about Sansa Stark.

She stands out from the company she keeps – the Queen, who often wears the garb of a _khaleesi_ as often as that of a Queen of Westeros, Nymeria Sand who leaves very little to the imagination – by dressing modestly.  Her form is still fine beneath her clothing, long limbs and a graceful walk, the slight tilt of her nose, the red of her hair.  But it is her eyes, bluer than the Mander, that give him pause.  There’s something in them that is unfathomable, and he feels guilty for what was not to be.

She is kind, too, and he will not forget the small kindnesses that she has showed him, or the way that she blushed so spectacularly when he offered his arm at the coronation.  She is lovely, but bruised, and for every moment of warmth that he has seen, there have been moments of ice.

It is hot in the hall, and with much trouble he makes his way outdoors for a brief respite.  It is worth the effort when he feels the coolness of the winter air on his brow, and he ambles over to a nearby pillar and leans against it, basking in the stillness of the garden.  It is s different from the chaotic feasts that have consumed this celebratory week.

And the wine.  He might have had too much to drink.

He is eager for the peace and quiet of Highgarden once more.

There is a sound behind him, the soft scuffling of shoes, and he turns his head, fully prepared to ask whoever it is - a servant, perhaps, or a troubling family member - to stop worrying about him.

But Sansa Stark stands before him, dressed in gold, hair flowing freely around her face, and the words cannot leave his lips.

"I hope I am not bothering you, Lord Tyrell," she's says.  "The hall felt stifling."  She smiles shyly, and walks to stand near him.

"Of course not, Lady Sansa," he says, and he wonders if there is a faint blush on her cheeks tonight.  It must be the warmth from inside.  "I too felt stifled."

 _Willas Tyrell, champion of poor conversation_.  No wonder he is not yet married.  He leans back against the pillar.

Or maybe it's just Sansa who has him tongue tied - Sansa or the wine or something else,  because he can clearly think of what he wants to say, but he is so much better with words on paper.

Sansa does not seem to mind. "I am glad, my lord, for there are things I wish to speak you about."

Before he can open his mouth to ask, Sansa leans forward and presses her lips to his.  He is startled, but he cannot step back and so he lets her kiss him, and he kisses her.  She tastes like Arbor Gold and her lips are so incredibly soft and it’s been ages since someone has kissed him that Willas feels everything stirring inside him.

Finally, reason returns to him and he breaks away.

“Lady Sansa,” he tells her, “I am not sure this is speaking."

"No," she says, "but it will suffice," reaching up to pull Willas towards her once more. She tangles one hand in his hair, rests another on his chest.

He follows willingly, because he is drunk and she is beautiful and kind and he hates his hands, one for threading through her hair and pulling her closer to him, and the other for resting on her hip and pulling her closer still.

It is the moan she makes, when their bodies make contact that forces him to let go.

“Lady Sansa," he says, startled, a thousand speeches galloping through his head about how she is lovely and how he wishes to know her and how he really wants to just keep on kissing her.

Instead, he asks, "Why?" Because his kiss-addled mind really wants to understand what just happened.

"I thought you might be fun," she says, breathing still uneven.

"I hardly think a cripple is much fun," he says without thinking, and once again, she wilts before his eyes.  Her expectant gaze becomes cold, and he hates himself for always saying the wrong thing.

"Of course" she says, "how foolish of me."  Sansa turns and flees back into the hall, and even when he tries to find her, he doesn't, not that he can easily move between the people and tables in the hall.

Regret course through his veins, causing a different pain in his body, one that is not clustered around his useless leg.  He leaves the hall, and returns to his quarters.

Willas still isn't sure of what happened in that garden, or why Sansa sought him out, but he drafts a letter and sends it to her before he can think the better of it.


	4. shatter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weird formatting - sorry about that!

Sansa does not sleep that night.  When the dawn comes, it finds her curled in a chair near the window.

 A note – a missive, more like it - lies open on the table.

 She can see now how foolish she was to fall on Willas like a wolf on its prey, but the music and wine and the feeling in her stomach when she saw him pushed her forward.

 That, and Nymeria Sand and her stupid, stupid words.

 She sends for Nymeria when the note comes, but the Dornishwoman is already occupied and Sansa cannot blame her - a part of her wants to be similarly occupied. 

 Instead, the letter sits, a reminder of her foolishness.

 

_My lady Sansa,_

_I hope this note finds you well, and that you do not think I found our chat this evening less than enjoyable.  Indeed, you are quite gifted at conversation and I find that I have not been thus entertained by such a skilled practitioner in some time._

_I must regret that the end of conversation was brought about by my own failings, namely in the art at which you excel.  You see, I am both out of practice and lack confidence in my own skills.  Being in the presence of such a lady of esteemed grace, anyone can feel inadequate.  I must admit, I am of the understanding that there are very few men with whom you can converse with that share your station, and as a result I understand why you chose me._

_It is a great honor, but also a challenge, one that I am not sure I can fully engage in due to my present condition and, admittedly, a lack of knowledge about your own intentions.  As such, I make a request that I hope a kind and fair lady such as yourself will honor: if I am to be in conversation with you, I would know what you desire of me.  That is all I ask._

_W.T._

Sansa knows that when she was younger, a letter such as this would have set her heart aflutter – it is clearly a declaration of intent, and an earnest one at that.  She still feels something – a fluttering in her chest, followed by the memory of his lips against hers. 

 She really did like kissing him.

 It is nearly mid-morning when Nymeria arrives, wearing the same gown as the night before, her hair tumbling around her shoulders.

 “I thought that you were to be occupied, once I saw you follow the eldest Tyrell out of the hall,” she says, sitting at the table.  “I was quite surprised to find your message waiting for me.”

 “On the table,” Sansa says, drawing her knees to her chest.  “Please read it.”

 With a smirk and an arched eyebrow, Nymeria lifts the letter off the table.  She reads it quickly, then glances over to Sansa.  “Surely you did not just converse with the man?”

 “Of course not!” Sansa exclaims, surprised and slightly offended.  “We kissed.”

 Nymeria waits expectantly.                                                         

 “And then he asked why I chose to kiss him.”

 Nymeria reaches for an apple.  “I hope, little wolf, you knew what to say.”

 Sansa hugs her knees closer.  “I told him I thought he would be fun.”  She rests her chin on her knees.  “He took it as an offense, I think.”

 Nymeria takes a bite from her apple, and shrugs.  “I would not think he was so offended, if he sent you that letter.  He wishes to court you.”

 “I do not want to be courted.”

 “Then perhaps set your own terms,” Nymeria says.

 Sansa hesitates.  “It’s…you can do that?” she asks quietly, feeling like a whole new world has just been revealed.  Her septa always told her that she would be betrothed, and she must do what her husband asked of her, and she did – at least, she tried with Joffrey, she tried so hard to be what they all wanted her to be and look where that got her?

 This is a new and terrifying prospect – to set the terms when dealing with a man.

 “Sansa,” Nymeria says softly, and it’s only then that Sansa realizes she’s been staring off into space, deep in her own thoughts.

 “What do you suggest I do?” Sansa asks.

A large, cat-like grin spreads across Nymeria’s face.  “I do have some suggestions.”

 

…

Willas sleeps fitfully, and his brother notices when he visits him that morning.

 “Your leg?” Garlan asks, handing Willas the basket of breads. 

 “No, not my leg.”  Willias motions to a servant for wine.  When Garlan raises his eyebrows, Willas pretends not to notice.  He takes an interest in spreading honey on bread instead of meeting his brother’s questioning gaze.

 It is not soon thereafter that a message arrives for Willas, who breaks open the seal greedily, only glancing for a moment to see that there is a direwolf sigil pressed into grey wax.  He reads the contents, then rereads it, then folds it up and tucks it into his doublet.

 “Something important?” Garlan asks.  Willias takes a sip of his wine.

 “Perhaps,” Willas says.  It gives him a quiet thrill to have this private letter, this private entreaty, near his heart. 

 Garlan continues to look at him strangely as they eat their meal, but the concerned gaze of his brother does not concern him now.

 Instead, his thoughts are on whatever Sansa wants to say to him.

 After breakfast, he hobbles as best he can to Maegor’s Holdfast, where Nymeria Sand meets him.

 “I am your escort,” she says, extending her arm for him to take.  It helps him walk up the steps, and he is grateful for this small courtesy, for Nymeria does not have the best reputation as a caring individual.

 “Are you to be a chaperone as well?” Willas asks. 

 Nymeria shrugs. “I do not believe in chaperones, but Lady Sansa has certain ideas about propriety that I honor, even if I do not share them.”

 Willas falls silent, wondering just what exactly to expect with this audience.

 The note that he sent the night before was hastily composed but purposeful.  Sansa is a beautiful woman, and he much enjoys kissing her, but he is too old and too infirm for stolen kisses behind the hedgerows.  If Sansa means to kiss him, he would do this properly.

 If she desires it, at least.  There is much about Sansa Stark he doesn’t know nor understand, and this realization makes him incredibly nervous.

 They arrive at Sansa’s quarters, and Nymeria knocks once before opening the door. 

Sansa is seated at table but stands quickly when Willas enters.  Though she looks him in the eye without any fear or hesitation, there is a faint blush on her cheeks that is absolutely irresistible.

“I will be next door,” Nymeria says, heading towards what Willas can only assume to be the bedchamber.

 When the door is closed, and Nymeria gone, he turns to look at Sansa.  She stands by the window, dressed in ice blue, and Willas can’t decide if he is terrified of her or if he really wants to kiss her.

 Instead, he stands where he is, and waits for her to speak.

 “Will you sit, my lord?” Sansa asks, gesturing to the table.  Willas is aware of everything right now: how heavily he leans on his cane; how much weight is placed on the right leg, not the left, as he makes his way towards the table; and how there is so much effortless grace in the way that Sansa moves to join him. It is not right for him to think that she would want him – his title, perhaps, or the safety of his lands, but not a cripple older than her. 

If she even wants him at all.

 She pours them wine, and takes a drink, and he watches her. 

 “I read your letter,” Sansa tells him, folding her hands in her lap and looking up to meet his eyes.   There is a nervous energy about her though she holds her body quite still, and it occurs to Willas that perhaps they are each afraid of the other.

 “I am much better in writing than in speech,” Willas says, and Sansa smiles.  He smiles in return, and some of the tension in his body dissipates.

 “You are fair in both, my lord,” she says, her words easily becoming the court flattery he has heard her speak on multiple occasions.  It makes him uneasy once more, and he fears he’s overstepped his bounds in writing the letter.

 “You flatter me, Lady Sansa.”

 Sansa takes a deep breath, looking down at her hands then back at him.  “Nymeria told me what I should tell you but I find that her words are not mine.”  She pauses, reaching for her cup then putting her hands back on her lap.  “When I came to King’s Landing, I was but a young girl, and certainly not schooled in the ways of a royal court.   It was only in time that I learned to speak the words that would please others, but never myself – yet they were words that would keep me safe.”  Sansa takes another sip.  “In time, I learned to do things that would keep me safe as well.”

 Sansa looks up at Willas then, her gaze fierce.  “I am no innocent girl, my lord,” she says.  “I have survived this war but lost my family, and though I am not sure I know who I have become through my words and deeds, I have some knowledge of what I want.”

 It takes Willas a moment to realize that Sansa is, quite possibly, meaning _him_ , and his only response is, “And what is that, Lady Stark?”

 “I thought my clumsy attempt at seduction in the garden made what I want quite obvious, my lord.”

 There is a sweetness to Sansa’s tone that he has heard too often on Margaery’s tongue, and it repulses him.  In that moment, it dawns on Willas that perhaps Sansa doesn’t quite know what she wants as well as she thinks she does, and he’s not entirely sure that what happened in the garden was anything other than a young girl’s foolish notions.

 Willas reaches for his cup and takes a drink.  Without thinking, he says, “I am a broken man, and other than my station in life, I am not sure what I can offer you.”

He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth, and he wonders why, with Sansa Stark, he cannot manage to say anything correctly.  Despite this, he knows he speaks the truth.

 “I don’t want your station,” Sansa says, sweetness turning to anger in one breath.  “I don’t want marriage or a title – I’ve already got my name and I’ve already been married.”

 “Forgive me, my lady, for the offense,” Willas says after some time, when he thinks her emotions have abated.  “Perhaps you could tell me, plainly, what you do want so that I do not make such assumptions again.”

 “I already told you.”  Sansa stands, and walks to the window.  She is facing away from him when she speaks.  “I find you handsome, and kind, and I already told you what I want.”

 “Yet you do not want a marriage or a title,” Willas points out.  “I’m sorry if I’m being unkind, my lady, but I am at a loss for how to proceed.”  He stares at the tasteful arrangement of fruit in the center of the table, trying to gather his words in such a way that will not offend her.  For all that she knows of courtly intrigue and impulsive kisses, she is still Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and she deserves more than trysts with a broken Southron lord. 

 “I think you are the most beautiful woman in all the seven kingdoms,” he tells her, “and if you wanted, I would court you as best I could, but I know other than my title and lands, there is little about me that makes me marriageable.  The traits that you extol are not usually the ones that young ladies look for in husbands.  And since you are not looking for a husband...”

 Sansa remains by the window. He cannot see her expression, and there is a feeling in his stomach – self-loathing, perhaps, and most definitely pity.   He considers standing, but this wine is too good and he will finish it first.

 “I leave in the morn,” he tells her, “and I do not know when I will see you again.  I am flattered by your words, and I much enjoyed our conversation last night.  In time, you will find another to be handsome and kind, and you no longer wish to converse with me.”

 He hopes that she understands that he almost expects this of her, since Prince Aegon is younger and not a cripple and needs a lovely lady to marry.  There are others, Willas is sure, that will lure Sansa away from this infatuation.

 That thought makes his stomach twist once more, and he realizes he can no longer stand to be here.

 Willas puts one hand on the table, and with his cane, prepares to rise.   As he steadies himself against the table, Sansa speaks.

 “You must think me foolish,” she says, and when she turns to him, there are tears in her eyes. 

 “Of course not, my lady,” Willas tells her.  “I think you’re quite lovely, but I do not think you know what you want as well as you claim, and I do not think there is any shame in that.  There’s nothing wrong with being indecisive.”

 Sansa laughs, a sharp laugh that sounds almost like a sob.  “You are kind.”

 Willas smiles.  “You are too kind.” As an impulsive afterthought, he adds, “Perhaps one day you will come to Highgarden.”

 “I would like that, my lord.” 

 Willas approaches the door, and then turns.  “I hope to remain in your good graces, my lady.  I know my sister would desire to correspond with you.”

 “Thank you, my lord.”

 He leaves Sansa and walks down the stairs alone.  It takes him longer this time, because the heavy weight of what he thinks she was offering presses down against his heart and causes him to move slowly.

 

When he returns to his quarters, he retires to his bedroom.  He sits at the desk, pen in hand, and stares out at King’s Landing.

 Garlan finds him later, drafts of paper scattered around him.

 “Correspondence?” his brother asks, sitting across from him.

 “Something like that,” Willas says.  “I want you and Leonette and your children to inherit Highgarden after my passing.”

 Garlan is speechless.  “Willas, your children –“

 “I will not have children, Garlan, surely you know that by now,” Willas says, continuing to write on paper.  “Even though I can, I doubt I will marry.  Instead, I will be the uncle who spoils his nieces and nephews.”

 

Garlan looks away, and Willas can see the conflict in his brother’s face.  “Don’t lose hope, Willas.  Surely there’s a woman who –“

 “I do not wish to speak of myself right now, Garlan,” he tells his brother.  “You mentioned taking the young prince out with his new falcon today – do you still intend to do so?”

 Garlan appears startled.  “Yes.  Are you joining us?”

 Willas forces a smile.  “I need to make sure that my gift to the prince is worthy.  Have the stables prepare my horse.”

 As Garlan leaves, Willas looks back at the papers he has been drafting – arrangements for Garland and his children, ideas about the Reach, correspondence to Margaery about their departure.   He stares at the papers before rising.

 He needs the wind in his hair and the feeling of speed that only comes now on horseback.  Perhaps the winter wind will wipe away his doubts, and the feeling of weightless that has always come with riding will make him feel less burdened by his discussion with Sansa Stark.

 At the very least, the pain in his left leg that seems at its worst when riding will surely have banish all other thoughts from his mind.

 

...

 The great houses leave the capital city, and Sansa finds herself lost.  Her conversation with Willas Tyrell made her sad.  She is unable to forget their last conversation; he went riding with the prince that afternoon, and sat at the far end of the table, as far away from her as possible.

 There is shame that rises up in her at their conversation.  When she turns the words over in her head, she cannot see any way in which she did not seem pitiful and young.  Willas was kind to her, she realizes, because while his words hurt, they were spoken truthfully.  Sansa does not know what she wants other than the fulfillment of some deep need.  She can posture, and say that she does not want a husband or to be courted, but part of her wants both, and part of her wants none.  

 He was right to turn her away.  She was wrong to ask so much of him.

 “You are troubled,” Jon says, looking up from the copious amount of correspondence he deals with each morn.  It is all from the North, and she sits opposite the table from him, rereading a letter for the fourth time and not understanding any of the words.

 “It is nothing,” she says, putting the letter down.  “I make careless decisions based on emotions.”

 

“We all have done that, Sansa,” he tells her. “It’s what makes us who we are.”

 Sansa looks away.  “I should know better.  I have done better.”

 “Just because we’ve done better doesn’t mean we’ll always do better,” Jon says. 

 Sansa considers the information as Ghost pads over to sit on her feet.

 That night, she writes a letter to Willas.  In it, she tells him mindless chatter about the capital and the Queen and even how Prince Aegon keeps praising his new hunting birds (a gift from Willas).  There is nothing too personal in the letter, no mention of their last conversation, but she finds peace in pretending that they are acquaintances, and she is not a foolish child. She signs it Sansa Stark, and sends it in the morning with other letters to Highgarden – one for Margaery, and another to Tommen from Tyrion, who asks her to send it when he finds she has her own as they break their fast.

 Life begins to take on a daily routine: Sansa sits in small council, she sits with Jon, she spends time with the Queen and the other ladies of the court.  Tyrion encourages her to go hawking one afternoon with himself and the Prince.  Garlan Tyrell and his wife Leonette are there as well, and Sansa quite enjoys herself in their company. 

 If, in certain lights, Garlan resembles his brothers, Sansa tries not to notice.  She has her maid light a candle for Loras in the Sept, even if she herself won’t go.

 

...

 

There is business in the North, and Jon decides that he can no longer stay in the South.   He tells Sansa this one afternoon.  They have decided to go riding out beyond the city walls.  Ghost runs in front of them, eager to be free in the crisp winter air.

 “Every time I think spring will come, it gets colder,” Jon tells her.

 “We Starks are supposed to be bred for this,” Sansa points out with a laugh.   “You’ve been further north than me – you should survive winter just fine.”

 “I hope,” Jon says, hanging his head.  She knows that he is worried about returning to Winterfell.  Despite his being raised up to Lord Stark, and accepted by the north, she knows he still feels like a bastard.  If it were weeks ago, she would think he didn’t want the responsibility.

 No, she’s not sure he wants to leave the only family he has left.

 She has seen Jon grows close to his brother.  It has been cautious, but ongoing, and the Prince has been quite vocal about Jon’s decision to leave.  The Queen, too, does not seem excited at her nephew’s leaving, but having granted him title and land, she must let him go.  

 Sansa knows that she is his family too, and she does not want him to go for selfish reasons: if he leaves, she is alone in this city.  She has Tyrion, who does act like an older brother towards her, and whom Jon respects in his own way, and she has Nymeria, who is fickle and impulsive and makes her doubt herself.

 But she has been too long without family, and she is frightened to lose some of what she has regained.

 They do not talk – Jon’s always been silent, but this is companionable silence, not something else, but it is enough for her.  Ghost runs off, disappearing for some time before returning as quietly as he left.

 It is several days after Jon leaves that Tyrion calls her to one of the small rooms in the holdfast that serves as the Hand of the Queen’s solar.

 “A local farmer claims that a white direwolf took a fancy to his dog, and he swears the bitch is pregnant,” Tyrion tells her.  “He refuses to feed half-wolf whleps – “

 “I will take the litter,” she tells him.  “We will send some north.”  There is no moment of thought before she speaks because she knows, in her blood, like that day years ago when Jon found the wolves, that this is meant to be.

Tyrion smiles.  “I thought you would say that.  I paid the farmer for his dog, and you’ll find her in your quarters.”

 They dine together that night.  Sansa is still humming in exhilaration at the thought of fate, and the beautiful dog that lies at her feet, quietly gnawing on a bone.   It feels as if some part of her that has been missing since Lady’s death is becoming whole again.

 “Whoever thought a pup would make you happy, Sansa,” Tyrion tells her.  “If I had known, I would have found you a litter of puppies years ago.”

 Sansa reaches for her wine.  “It’s not the pups themselves,” she says. 

 “Of course.  The direwolf – the Stark emblem,” Tyrion points out.  “I asked for a lion cub when I was a child.”

 "Did you get one?”

 “Unfortunately not.  MY father informed me that the only lions fit to live on Casterly Rock were the Lannisters, and we would not share.” 

Sansa laughs, leaning back in her chair.  Tyrion looks at her, and she wonders what he thinks of her.  She feels so different, and so similar, to the girl that he married.

 “You should laugh more,” he says.  “Laughter suits you.  When I first met you, you did nothing but blush and laugh and smile.”

 Sansa feels her stomach lurch.  “Those days are in the past,” she tells him. 

 “They don’t have to be,” Tyrion argues.  “Allow yourself to live, Sansa.  There is no one that can hurt you now.”

 When Sansa retires to her chamber, she looks over her correspondence.   Since writing Margaery, she has received letter after letter full of exclamations and anecdotes and tales of the Reach written in painfully beautiful handwriting.  Margaery, it seems, is desperate to talk to someone, and Sansa is willing to be that person.  She reads about Tommen and his cats and the horses and hawks and _Willas Willas Willas_ even though it hurts her.

 He has not responded, and he has been back in Highgarden for some time.

 As she picks up her pen, ready to write, Sansa tries not to think of it.  She pens Margaery a letter about the pups (their mother is a beautiful dog of white and gold and she cannot wait to until her babies arrive).   If she scribbles a few words onto paperand then throws the paper into the fire, watching the flames lick at the letter ‘W’ as she does every night, then it is happenstance.

 It cannot matter anymore.

 Sansa knows that the only person she is any good at lying to is herself.


	5. Interlude: Highgarden

The letter sits on the desk in his solar, its edges softened by the number of times he has turned it over and read its contents.  He learns nothing new, but each day he hopes, because the lack of solution to this riddle will slowly drive him mad.

Willas returned to Highgarden a fortnight ago, the travel from King’s Landing hard on his leg and causing him to spend hours moving very little and thinking far too much.  It does nothing for his mood, which has been souring since the letter was placed in his hands by a curious Margaery upon his arrival.

Sansa Stark had sent him a letter.

Sansa Stark sends many letters to Highgarden, all of them save this one to Margaery.  His sister shares her letters with him, but they are nothing of substance, nothing save court gossip and polite courtesies that he knows Sansa is so skilled at delivery.  The flourish of her name makes him sad, for whatever girl lived in the Vale has been changed by living in the capital.  It makes him sad because there is something in Sansa that flitters to the surface, something bright and strong but hidden by pleasantries and idle talk, and he would see that something be freed.

The long ride back from King’s Landing gives Willas pause to think and to feel so very  old as he replays their conversation in his head over and over.  More than that, it lets him admit how he hoped, for a shining moment, that perhaps there was a lady in Westeros that would be a good match for him, a lady of great kindness and heart, who could be the lady of Highgarden.

Instead, he just found a foolish young girl no better than Margaery, and while he loves his sister, he does not love what her ambition has done to her.

There is a soft knock at the door, and Willas knows it is Margaery.  It must be after midday, so Margaery has finished Tommen’s lessons and the young boy is free to roam the grounds with his cats.  The boy is sweet, and Margaery’s affection for him clear, and Willas himself will admit that she is doing an excellent job seeing that he is raised properly – far better than his own mother did.

“I hope I am not interrupting you at work,” Margaery says.  She stands in the doorway, and Willas looks at her for a moment before looking back down to the correspondence at his desk.

“A welcome interruption,” he tells her.  “How is Tommen doing as his lessons?”

Margaery smiles, crossing the room to take a seat by the window.  “Quite well.  Mother says that he reminds her of you, how he takes to books.”  She pauses.  “We are worried about you.”

“My leg is fine,” he says, and Margaery laughs bitterly.

“You always think we inquire about your leg,” she tells him.  “We do not care about that leg of yours.  I can see that your heart has been weary since you returned from King’s Landing.   I know that Garlan sends you ravens – it cannot be the loss of him that troubles you so.”

Garlan’s messages are piled in a small corner of the desk, and tell him much about King’s Landing and its inhabitants.  They tell him little of Sansa, which is the one thing he wants to know about but is afraid to ask.  He glances at her letter.

“Have you written her?”  Margaery asks. 

“No.”  Willas focuses his gaze away from the desk and out the window.  Winter in the South does not mean snow, just rain, and the farms are still flourishing.  He must go visit the tenants near Highgarden soon.  He must check the accounts of the household, he must correspond with Oldtown –

“Have you written Sansa?” Margaery asks again, and he is forced to focus once more.

“I have not had the time,” he tells her.  The words seem to incite her, for she rises and crosses the room in a few strides.

“Yet you have had time to read this letter over and over,” she says, snatching the paper off the desk.  Willas makes a gesture, as if to reach for it, but thinks better of himself.  His arm drops to the desktop.

“What happened in King’s Landing?” Margaery asks softly.  She does not release the letter, but she looks at him like she does Tommen, and he sighs.

“I really am quite pitiful,” he tells her, feeling that he speaks the truth.  “I do not know what happened in King’s Landing.  I haven’t had the time to respond to the letter, but I will soon.”

Margaery bites her bottom lip, and returns the letter to the desk.  Willas resists snatching it away from her.

“Sansa has a kind heart,” Margaery says. “A good heart. At least, she was when I knew her, and she seems to have changed little.”

Willas is tempted to tell her that she is no judge of character,  that the Sansa who he has met is nothing of the girl she wrote him about years before, but he stops.   There are emotions that churn inside him, and he is tired of having this maelstrom in his heart.

“How can I tell?” he asks softly.  “How can I tell what is real and what is not with a woman?”

Margaery smiles.  “You must read between the lines and guess at the meaning of her words.  It is easy, for a woman, to hide what she feels, and for Sansa, I think that hiding has become second nature.  She was very good at it when I knew her well.”

“That is very tiresome, little rose,” he tells her teasingly, though he means it.   Margaery shrugs gracefully.

“Of course, you could just ask,” she says as she leaves him to his thoughts, which toss and turn like a boat in a storm.  There is a part of him that wishes to burn the letter, and forget of Sansa Stark and her kind eyes and the way it felt when he kissed her. 

There is another part that feels something complete different.

It is that part that makes him put pen to paper once more.

 


	6. grow

It is at the end of a small council meeting that a letter arrives from Highgarden.  It is not from Margaery.  Sansa’s heart soars at the familiar writing, though there is something that tempers her elation – a fear of what the letter can possibly say.  It has been weeks since she sent hers.

 

It is nothing if not cordial, polite, and beautiful at the same time: Willas tells her of his trip back from King’s Landing, the rain that keeps them indoors in the Reach (though it seems Tommen enjoys running through the gardens playing with the stablehands).  His letter is different from those that she gets from Margaery and more personal in a way, but she thinks, perhaps, it is the tone that he takes with her – like she is a dear friend (though Sansa very much doubts he regards her as such).

 

She responds to him in what she hopes is the same way, and soon there is a steady correspondence between Highgarden and King’s Landing. Willas never mentions their conversation, and she does not bring it up, and while they talk of all the various and sundry things that happen in their daily lives, Sansa finds that she is always very interested in what he has to say.   She assumes that the feeling is mutual.

 

The letters are welcome interludes in her tedious days full of small council meetings and time spent with the women of the court.  Nymeria has gone back to Dorne for some time, and other than Tyrion, Sansa does not feel as if there are many she can speak with here.  Leonette Tyrell seems nice, but Sansa finds that her days are so busy that she barely has time to speak to the other woman, especially if they are in a large group.

 

The letters they exchange are fodder for her active imagination.  Thoughts of his kindness and gentle nature fill her mind when she is alone.  Sansa does not know if she should feel foolish for feeding this fascination with idle thoughts, but there is something to be said about the way her heart skips beats when she sees his handwriting and the small comfort that she finds in his words.

 

One day, Sansa takes a risk, and tells him a little bit more than just her daily life.   News had come from Winterfell – an official accounting of the dead of the North, those lost in the war and those lost to the cold because of the war.  All of the wardens are tasked with doing so, but the impact is more severe than she thought.  The name and numbers that Jon sends are staggering, and Sansa leaves the council chambers to cry in her own quarters.

 

There is no one she can talk to about this – no one to share stories about Jeyne Poole, or any of the people she knew and loved growing up.  She had not thought of them, had only thought of her family when she was in the Vale, and now that she has to consider them, it is too much to bear.

 

She writes to Willas, pouring her heart out on the sheets of paper, feeling as if there is only one person who will listen.  She’s done and sealing it before she fully realizes what she’s done, but she sends it anyway in the hope that he will listen.  Sansa feels selfish, for it’s done her heart more good to write it all than it will ever do him reading it.

 

Willas responds almost immediately.  Sansa is given the letter one morning, as she breaks her fast with Tyrion.  She opens it because she is desperate (for what, she’s not sure) and devours the words he has written.

 

He is kind, and considerate, and open with her in a way that she hadn’t expected and doesn’t know quite how to deal with.

 _When we counted the deaths in the Reach_ , he writes, _I knew many of them.  I could not sleep the night that we tallied the numbers, each name a testament to what my family’s ambition had done to the land.  I do not know how I spent that night, but morning came and found me where I remember sitting that night before.  I lost track of all time, and felt as if I was lost in a fog for several days.  Names echoed in my mind – men who died when my father called the banners, women raped and murdered by the Ironborn along the coast.  I thought of those not named – the babes who would never know their fathers, the mothers who lost their sons – and I wept.  And I do not feel ashamed for it.  There have been days when I wished myself dead rather than deal with the pain of my leg.  Now, I realize how many gave their lives for something so trivial as mine, and I try to make it matter, as little as I can._

It’s not until Tyrion says her name softly that Sansa looks up, startled, and realizes her vision is blurry.  She puts down the letter and wipes her face, where tears have fallen from her eyes.

 

“Is everything all right?” Tyrion asks.  “That letter – is it - ?”

 

“No,” Sansa says, feeling silly because it’s nothing from Winterfell, nothing about Rickon or Jon.  “No, it’s just a letter from a friend.”

 

Willas is a friend, she knows, or something more than that.  Something special, and private, and hers.

 

...

 

Her letters to Willas are what guide her through the months that she spends in King’s Landing.  As winter continues to ebb and flow, so too does Sansa.  

  
She attends council meetings, at first feeling like a small player, but slowly, with the encouragement of Tyrion and Garlan Tyrell, finding her voice.  She speaks for the North, suggesting things that she thinks will make life better there.  With a Stark in Winterfell once more, the people of the North are beginning to rebuild their lives.   The stories that Jon sends her are stories of rebirth.  _Winter is here_ , Sansa thinks, and the North will survive as it always does.

 

Her lovely dog has puppies – just two, and when she sees their little wolf-like white faces, she smiles.  One of them, the girl pup, takes her to her immediately, and she names the whelp Spirit.  The other takes to Tyrion.   They still share rooms, and when Tyrion offers to move her to other quarters, Sansa refuses.

 

“I don’t mind,” she tells him.  “When the Tower of the Hand is rebuilt, then you can leave me here and go live in your splendor.”

 

“Who will look after you, then?” Tyrion teases.  “You get into so much mischief as it is that I feel I can hardly do my duty as Hand and make sure of your whereabouts.”

 

Sansa appreciates the way that their relationship has grown over the past few months.  Though there are moments when she thinks he wishes that there was more than just friendship, Tyrion acts like the dutiful older brother he promised to be. 

 

It’s the smaller of the two pups, the one that looks more lupine than the other, that takes to Tyrion much like Spirit takes to her.

 

“You said you always wanted a lion,” Sansa says one evening.  They are lounging by the fire with the mother of the pups.  Sansa holds out a string for Spirit to tug on, and the other pup seems more interested in Tyrion than anything else.

 

“I wanted a lion, not a half-wolf creature,” Tyrion says, though he still pets its little nose. 

 

“Something is better than nothing,” Sansa points out as Spirit scampers over to her brother and pulls on his tail.  “He needs a name.”

 

Tyrion reaches over for the boy pup, brushing Spirit away gently with his hand.  “What shall I name you, littlest one?” he asks.  The pup licks his nose instead.

 

“Balerion, perhaps,” Tyrion suggests, holding the pup in the air.  “Would you be able to keep up with the Queen’s dragons?”

 

Sansa wrinkles her nose.  “Name a wolf after a dragon?” she teases.  “Give him a good strong name.”

 

Tyrion considers the pup more.  “A Northern name, perhaps? One fit for a part-wolf bastard?”

 

Tyrion names him Sword. 

 

“He better not stay a runt forever,” Tyrion says, “for the Hand needs to wield a Sword.”

 

...

 

One day, a visitor arrives at court.

 

The visitor is tall, and walks with a limp, and is the last that the Queen will see that day.  Sansa stands off to the side of the throne, thinking about dinner and not paying much attention to the proceedings, until the visitor removes their – her – hood and reveals herself.

 

“My Queen,” the woman says.  She is taller than any woman that Sansa has seen, and she carries a large bundle with her.  “My name is Brienne of Tarth.”  She takes a knee in front of the Queen.  One side of her face is terribly scared, and her hair is cut very short. 

 

Sansa remembers hearing about Brienne of Tarth and her own mother being implicated in the death of Renly Baratheon, and how Jaime Lannister apparently disappeared with her years ago.

 

She can see Tyrion sit up straighter on the other side of the dais.

 

“Rise, Lady Brienne,” the Queen commands.  The woman stands.  “I have heard much of you.”

 

“I have something for Lady Stark,” Brienne of Tarth tells her. 

 

The Queen beckons to Sansa, who steps forward.  Brienne turns to her and Sansa feels cold all over.

 

“After the death of Lord Renly, I came to be in the service of Lady Catelyn Stark.  I was to take the – Jaime Lannister to King’s Landing in exchange for you.  When we arrived in King’s Landing, however, you were no longer here.”

 

Brienne opens the bundle that she is carrying, which is a sword.  The guards around the hall reach for their hilts, but with a gesture from the Queen, fall back.

 

“Ser Jaime gave me this and sent me to find you,” Brienne says, examining the sword.  It glows red in the light of the hall.  “He named it Oathkeeper – it was my oath to find you and return you to Winterfell.” Brienne looks down.  “I failed, my lady, but this sword is yours.” She presents the sword to Sansa.

 

“Lady Brienne,” Tyrion calls out, moving off of his seat near the dais and walking towards her.  “My brother gave you this sword?”

 

Brienne looks up at Tyrion and nods.  She does not meet his eyes.

 

“He did, my lord Hand.  He said it was a gift from your father.”

 

Tyrion turns to Sansa.   “This is no ordinary blade,” he says.  “This was forged from your father’s longsword, Ice.  My father had two made – one for Joffrey, and one for Jaime.”  Tyrion pauses, his gaze intense and steady.  “This is your father’s sword, Sansa.”

 

There is a lion on the pommel, and the sheath does not show the blade, but she reaches out for it without knowing what she is doing.  The sword is heavy in her hands, and it takes both her arms to hold it, but she accepts it.  

 

“Thank you,” she tells Brienne of Tarth as she holds what is left of her father’s sword.  This does not look like the blade she remembers, but -

 

There is not much thought before Sansa is on the floor, the sword across her knees, and the overwhelming feeling of pain surging through her body as she thinks about her father, and her mother, and Robb and Arya and Bran and how this is now her sword because she is the last of them left besides Rickon and Jon who was always a Stark but who is not the head of her family because she is and –

 

There are rustles of garments around her and she can see blurred figures moving away from here, beyond her but she cannot see them because of the tears, and oh _gods_ there is nothing left of her house but her, all of them gone and killed and it is so heavy on her heart, the way that the pressure feels and she _misses_ them –

 

“Shh,” someone says next to her.  She can feel arms around her, and a woman’s voice says, “let the tears flow, my dear, let them flow.”

 

And so Sansa does – tears that have been stored inside for years, hardened into ice ( _she is of the North after all_ ) flow until there is nothing but an emptiness inside of her where her hatred and hurt and pain had been stored all of those years, and she hiccups.

 

And turns her head.

 

It is the Queen who has held her as she sobbed, the sleeve of her blue dress stained with Sansa’s tears.

 

“When I was younger than you,” the Queen tells her, “I lost my family to the same people who took yours.”

 

Sansa blinks, and wipes away the tears.  “You took your vengeance,” she says.  “I would do the same.  I would burn them all.”  Saying the words surprises her, but in the worst moments of her life, she has wanted revenge more than she wanted to breathe.

 

“No, you wouldn’t,” the Queen says.  “There is more ice in your veins than fire, and that is not a bad thing, Sansa.  It cools your temper, and forces you to think twice.”  The queen brushes back the loose ends of Sansa’s hair, much like Sansa’s own mother did when she was younger.    “Vengeance did not bring my mother back, or my father or brothers.  Vengeance gave me my throne, but at the cost of many lives.”

 

Sansa sighs.  “You found your family - your nephews,” Sansa says, and her hands tightened around the sword in her lap.  “What if I never find my sister?”

 

“That I cannot tell you,” the queen says with a small smile.  “I did not expect to find family.  I can tell you that you will never forget those that you loved.  They will live on with you always, in your heart.” 

 

“At least the most foul Lannisters are dead,” Sansa says, and the Queen laughs. 

 

“And the most foul Lannisters dead, and their house in ruins,” the Queen agrees.  “So perhaps there is some vengeance for you in this world after all.”

 

Sansa rises with the Queen.  “Thank you, your Grace,” she says. “I think you would have been a good mother.”

 

The Queen smiles as they walk towards the doorway.  “I still am a mother, Sansa,” she tells her.  “Instead of my own flesh and blood, I have a kingdom that I must dote on and protect.”

 

The guards open the doors to the hall, and Sansa is surprised to find several members of the small council waiting there along with the Queen’s personal guard. 

 

“Lord Tyrell,” the Queen calls out, “please see that Lady Sansa is taken to her rooms.”

 

Garlan Tyrell nods, and approaches Sansa.  “Do you need help with the sword, my lady?”

 

Sansa tightens her grip on the blade.  “Thank you, my lord, but no.”

 

She walks, clutching the only possession of her father’s that she has, and Garlan makes small talk beside her.  He is pleasant, and kind, and she finds it easy to be with him right now.  The queen does know how to take care of her subjects; with any other lord Sansa does not think she would be as calm.

 

“Perhaps we will teach you to use that sword, my lady,” Garlan suggests as they approach her chambers, and Sansa smiles.

 

“Perhaps you should, Lord Tyrell,” she tells him, because the idea sounds like it might be lovely after all.  Perhaps Arya is not the only Stark girl who can wield a sword.

 

She stays in her chambers for some time, and though dinner is brought to her, she barely eats it.  When Tyrion returns to his chambers later, he is surprised to find her still awake.

 

“I have been with Lady Brienne,” he tells her.  “I wanted to hear about Jaime.”

 

“Is Lady Brienne still here?” Sansa asks.

 

“No, she left.  She is free to go, according to the Queen, and as far as I know, no one is to follow her.”  He sighs. “So wherever Jaime is, he will be safe for some time.”

 

“That is kind of the Queen.”

 

“Too kind.  My brother killed her father,” Tyrion sighs once more.  “One day, Jaime may very well meet the pointy end of a blade.  But today is not that day.”

 

Sansa nods.  Oathkeeper is spread across the table, and Tyrion runs his fingers along the pommel.

 

“I can have another one made for you, Sansa,” he offers, but she shakes her head.

 

“I will keep it,” she tells him, “as a reminder.”

 

She does not tell him what it reminds her of, and he does not ask.

 

...

 

Some nights, she wakes from dreams of Willas.

 

On those nights, she finds herself unable to return to sleep.  He fills her mind, and when she closes her eyes she sees his brown eyes, can almost feel his hair under her fingertips.  

 

There is a burning, deep within her, and she feels as if it will consume her.  She cannot be made of ice if she feels like this.

 

She thinks of him when she slides her fingers down to her thighs.  She thinks of their kiss as she curls her toes into her mattress and rolls her hips upwards.  She thinks of him when she guides herself to relief, and she wonders if he would be a conscientious lover, or if he would be bold.  She cries his name into her pillow, and remembers the nights when she was younger, when she used to do the same because it brought her much happiness.

 

Sansa does not feel ashamed at what she does.  She only wishes she could do more.

 

There is a small part of her that wonders if she is just harboring a childish infatuation – that this longing is an extension of her previous obsession.

 

There is another part of her that knows what she wants.  She finds her gaze drifting to men with brown eyes and light brown hair in the hall, finds that men who look like Willas and his brothers hold her attention longer.  She knows that there are things she writes in those letters to Willas that she tells no other soul – not Nymeria, or Tyrion, or even Jon.  She knows that she trusts him, and that she wants him.

 

On the nights when she is more dramatic, she wonders if their course is set out by the gods she doesn’t know if she believes in anymore, and if they were always meant to dance around each other like the stars in the heavens, never coming close enough for contact. If and when they do, she thinks, how they could burn like the shooting stars she once wished on when she was young.

 

...

 

Sansa is young but not foolish; she knows that Prince Aegon’s invitations to go riding are extended to many people but to her in particular.  The young prince is always at the edge of her vision, always looking towards her but never engaging with her.  She pays attention, because he is the prince, and she knows that she is an eligible young lady of noble birth.  She pays him no mind, however, because it is very unlikely that Prince Aegon will pursue a woman whose aunt drove his father to ruin.

 

Sansa takes the invitations as an opportunity to speak with Leonette Tyrell, who is so nice and charming and so very in love with her husband that it makes Sansa’s heart ache.  While the men ride ahead, she stays back.

 

“How do you like the Capital?” she asks Leonette, who smiles shyly.

 

“It is lovely, my lady, but I miss the Reach,” Leonette responds. 

 

“I have never been to the Reach,” Sansa muses.  “What is it like?”

 

Leonette breaks out in a smile.  “Oh, Lady Sansa, it is so beautiful!” she proclaims.  “It is so very green, even in winter, and there is so much growing.  It doesn’t get cold there, but it’s so green and there are woods and rolling valleys and you must come visit sometime.”

 

Sansa smiles and listens as Leonette tells hers about her family’s home, and then about Highgarden.  “And the gardens, Lady Sansa – there are mazes that you can get lost in, and roses for miles, and the house itself is so lovely.  There are so many rooms, even for Garlan and he is a second son, and his brother has the most wonderful library...”

 

Sansa allows herself to picture Highgarden, which sounds much more opulent and lovely than Winterfell, and so much larger.  She pictures the gardens and the roses and the library that Willas has, and focuses herself on the conversation before she can imagine much more.

 

“What is Wintefell like?” Leonette asks.

 

“It is much colder than here – much colder than the Reach,” Sansa says.  She does not say anything else, because the Winterfell that she knew has burned and something new must rise from the ashes.

 

When she returns to her chambers that night, she writes a hurried note to Willas.

 

_I know you think I am foolish, and young, but I dream of you.  I think of you.  I tell you things that I tell no one else.  I trust you with my heart.  There is no one I want to speak with more than  you.  There is no one I want to be with more than with you._

She folds the letter, and hides it in her trunks where even her maids can’t find it.   

 

The next day, Nymeria returns, and spends half of the afternoon telling her stories of Dorne and her conquests while she was away.  Her tales are ribald, and Sansa sends her maids away while she listens, enraptured. 

 

There is a freedom in Nymeria that Sansa envies, but the Queen is right.  Ice runs in her veins, and that very ice makes it impossible for her to send that letter to Willas as much as it makes it impossible for her to even consider engaging in half of what Nymeria has done, regardless of what she wants.  It is what keeps her emotions in check, but it helps her understand herself better. 

 

Sansa thinks that there is nothing wrong with tempering her words with caution, of tempering her heart.  She is of the North, and she knows what she wants, and one day, she hopes she can claim it.

 

Tyrion arrives as Nymeria ends another story, this one more naughty than the one before it, and catches the wrong part of it.  He does not frown, nor does he give Sansa a stern look. His gaze is leveled at Nymeria, who merely smirks and winks at him from her seat at the table. 

 

“Corrupting the youth, I see,” he tells Nymeria, who shrugs.

 

“She will be eight and ten on her name day,” Nymeria says.  “She is no innocent child.”

 

Sansa coughs into her wine, and hopes that nothing more is said on that matter.

 

“Well, I was coming to ask Lady Sansa if she would like to leave King’s Landing and go on a journey with me,” Tyrion says as he joins them at table.  He pours himself wine.

 

“A journey? To Winterfell?” Sansa asks.

 

“No – to the Reach,” Tyrion informs her.  “I would like to see how my nephew is, and I know you are quite fond of both him and his caretaker.  The Queen would have me see to some business in Oldtown, and Highgarden is on the way.”

 

Sansa’s hands grow cold, and she puts her cup down. “May I think about it?” she asks.

 

“Of course.  We do not leave tomorrow.”

 

That night, she takes out her note.  She adds, _Tyrion is going to Oldtown.  He will stop at Highgarden.  I would come, if you desired it, but I would stay away if that is your request._

 

She sends the raven at first light.

 


	7. interlude: Highgarden once more

_I know you think I am foolish, and young, but I dream of you.  I think of you.  I tell you things that I tell no one else.  I trust you with my heart.  There is no one I want to speak with more than you.  There is no one I want to be with more than with you._

_Tyrion is going to Oldtown.  He will stop at Highgarden.  I would come, if you desired it, but I would stay away if that is your request._

Hands shaking, Willas places the note on his bedside table. 

Against his better judgment, his correspondence with Sansa has grown over the past several months.  What started out with anecdotes of their daily lives has becomes something much more, and something much deeper than simply correspondence.

He tells her of his troubles: his fears over the welfare of his people, his concern over Margaery who is thrice-wed and now with no husband, his amusement at Tommen’s good cheer despite all that the lad has been through.  He tells her the secrets of his heart – all but one.

Sansa tells him things about herself as well, each letter revealing more and more of the glimmer that he saw.  The layers of courtly etiquette fall away with every new letter, and there is something mesmerizing about what he learns of Sansa in the process. 

She writes to him after her father’s sword, reforged under Tywin Lannister’s command, is returned to her.  She talks about those they have lost in the war, and how she misses her family, and he tells her stories of Loras as a child, bright-eyed and over-eager, and how he and Margaery used to run around Highgarden much in the same way Tommen does now.

Margaery teases him about the rapid pace in which ravens come and go, but Willas does not care.  He cares more about the glimmer of the real Sansa, the one who tastes like lemoncakes and wine and who he can feel under his fingertips when he closes his eyes, than he does any insinuations from his sister.

He dreams of her, Sansa of House Stark and the North, and feels guilty when he wants more.   He wants all of her, every part of that beautiful and bruised soul, and it frightens him how intensely he wants her here, with him, not in King’s Landing.

And then her letter arrives, and he is wracked with fear.

Her letter arrives the same day as a letter from the Hand of the Queen – and former husband of Sansa Stark – Tyrion Lannister, who informs him that he will be traveling to Oldtown and would like to rest at Highgarden to visit with his nephew.  Tyrion’s letter does not say that Sansa will go with him, but Willas knows she is waiting for his response just as Tyrion awaits proper invitation to visit Tommen.

It is a state visit, one that will provide suitable distraction for Margarey for he will leave the planning up to her.  She will want new dresses, and will insist on new clothes for Tommen as well, but she will be so happy.

As will he, if he asks Sansa to come.

The very asking of her is the most difficult part.  It is one thing to feign nonchalance and leave it for her to determine her mind, but her mind seems very much determined and there is little that Willas feels he might say or do to prevent her, other than saying no. 

It is not that he does not want to see Sansa – in his heart, he knows it is all that he wants – but he is afraid.  In his letters, he can be as cavalier or brave as he wants to be, for he is not there when Sansa reads the letters and what she remembers of him is probably colored more by their kiss than by anything else.

He finds that, in person, he is really far more disappointing than the jovial and good-hearted man that his letters make him out to be.

Willas knows it would be more convincing if he were able to point to some story in his past to guide his melancholy – a jilted love, one he wooed with letters who saw him with his cane and who left him – but there is nothing save the pitiful looks that others give him when he hobbles by that write this story.

That, and the fact that Sansa never mentions his infirmity.  She has never asked him about it, never inquired as to how he feels in that leg, which is either the mark of impeccable breeding or an indication she has forgotten, in the heat of the moment, that he may be the Lord of Highgarden but he is a cripple as well.

Or maybe she just doesn’t care.  But he finds that highly unlikely.

At supper that night, he brings up the matter of the visit.

“The Hand of the Queen will be coming to Highgarden,” he tells his mother and sister and Tommen.  “He is heading to Oldtown but he wants to see you, lad.”

The smile on Tommen’s face is so brilliant and pleased.  Tommen does not smile in their company unless it is something that Margaery says, though Willas has seen him blush at the attentions both his mother and sister give the poor boy.  Willas is growing fonder of him each day.

“How splendid!” his mother says, and Margaery smirks across the table.

“Is Lady Stark coming as well?” she asks.  “I heard they are quite inseparable.”

“Good friends, from what I hear,” Willas responds, reaching for a basket of bread.

“Sansa? Oh, I liked her!” Tommen chimes in, and Margaery smiles.

“Lady Stark is a lovely young woman, and will always be welcome in Highgarden,” his mother states firmly, casting a glance towards Willas, who fights the blush that rises to his cheeks.

“I will send word to the Hand that Lady Stark is welcome as well,” Willas concedes, “so long as Margaery takes charge of the preparations.”

Willas was right; Margaery is more than happy to be the one arranging this visit, and as she shoos Tommen away from supper table that night, his mother threads her arm through his. 

“She dotes on that boy,” Mother says, a smile lingering on her face. 

Alerie Hightower had buried her husband and youngest son, and the entrance of Tommen Waters into their life was something that may have eased some of her grief.  His mother welcome Tommen into their house with open arms, while Willas watched apprehensively on the side.

“It does her good to have something to guide her,” his mother adds as they begin to walk towards the library.  “As it would do you.”

“Management of our estate and the Reach guides me,”Willas tells his mother.  She stops, and turns to her firstborn.

“That is not what I mean,” she tells him.  “I know of the ravens.  Maester Lomys has told me that there have been more than a few sent by Lady Stark.”

This angers Willas, more fiercly than he would have thought possible.  “Does everyone in this house know my comings and goings?” he asks urgently.  

His mother lays a hand on his arm, to calm him.  “Maester Lomys did not mean to tell your secret to me,” his mother says.  “I think he thought I should be forewarned.   It is not every day that my oldest son as an admirer such as Lady Stark.”

Willas bows his head, anger flowing out of him.  “We met in King’s Landing.  She wrote me first.”

His mother’s smile is soft, and forgiving, much like whenever he or Garlan were caught stealing from the kitchens as children.  “I see that you do not write her out of duty.”

“No.”  Willas knows why he writes Sansa better than he would like.

His mother leans forward and places a kiss against his forehead like he is a young boy and not the lord of their house, yet he does not mind. 

“When you write to the Hand,” his mother says, “make sure to invite Lady Stark.  I would love to be better acquainted with her – she was always such a sweet young girl.”

His mother leaves him in front of the library.  It seems that all the women in his family have accepted Sansa’s entrance into his life with little more than a smirk – but then again, these same women conspired all those years ago to wed him to Sansa so that she could escape the Lannisters (perhaps this is fate, after all, that their paths keep intertwining...).

He writes Tyrion that night, welcoming him to Highgarden.  He writes to Garlan, and asks if he will be traveling with the Hand of the Queen.

He writes to Sansa.

_There is no one more welcome at Highgarden then you.  I wish for you to come._

He does not tell her that he wishes she would stay.


	8. nurture

 

 

_There is no one more welcome at Highgarden than you.  I wish for you to come._

Sansa reads the letter over and over.  It arrived this morning with another letter from Willas for Tyrion, formally inviting him to Highgarden, and one from Margaery full of exclamations about how happy she is that Sansa will be coming to Highgarden as well.  _I have always thought of you as a sister, regardless of circumstances_ , the other woman writes. 

Sansa does not need to wonder how Margaery knows she will be coming to Highgarden – she is far more cunning than Sansa could ever be, and she is sure that, somehow, she has determined that Sansa and Willas are corresponding.  Much like her grandmother, now thankfully departed from this world, Margaery always knew more than she should have.

“Margaery wishes me to come to Highgarden,” Sansa says, reaching for the basket of bread.  “I will accompany you.”

Tyrion nods, folding his own letter from Willas and placing it on the table.

“Very good.  We won’t leave for a fortnight, so make any arrangements for new dresses quickly.”  Tyrion leaves table, heading towards the door.

“I don’t need any new dresses,” Sansa protests.  She has yet to accept Tyrion’s money being spent on her now that they are no longer married.  There is limited money that Jon can send her and she would not take it anyway, the rebuilding of Winterfell paramount in her mind.   Yet, being in King’s Landing requires a certain amount of coin to establish a household and pay for food and clothing, and Sansa does not have that yet.  While she repairs her own clothing, fixing it as needed and trying to keep it fashionable, she relies on being a member of Tyrion’s household to pay for everything else and there is something discomforting in relying on him for everything, despite how friendly they have become.

There are days when Sansa wishes desperately for the ignorance of youth, when she did not have to care about money, but those days have been robbed from her long ago.

“The climate of the South is different than King’s Landing,” Tyrion tells her.  “Consider at least a new traveling cloak and a sturdy pair of boots.”

Sansa nods, watching as Sword follows Tyrion out of the chamber.

She keeps all of Willas’s letters bound together with green ribbon, hidden away behind dolls and other childish things, all beneath an old and abandoned Stark bridal cloak at the bottom of a trunk.  She started the bridal cloak in secret in the Vale, when she was to be married to Harry, but now it sits, unfinished.  Sansa takes it out when she misses her mother the most, and traces the pattern of the direwolf, eyes of pearl staring at her blank and thoughtless.

In a kinder time, her mother would have helped her make that cloak, and it would have been draped around her shoulders by her father only to be removed by another.

Sometimes, when she feels as fierce as a wolf, she thinks she will never use it because she will never be claimed.  There is too much ice in her veins, and though she is coming to accept that she is one of the fairest women of the court, there is too much that lies hidden in her heart, too much that she finds difficult to share with anyone else.  And a good marriage, as she has seen from her parent’s example, is one with few secrets (though she knows now why her father kept the identity of Jon’s mother from them all, and she hardly blames him).  

Sometimes, when she brushes her fingers against the cloak as she hides yet another letter, she remembers Margaery’s cloak and the way it glowed in the light of the sept, roses trailing behind her as she walked towards Joffrey, and she thinks of Willas.

Sansa takes a deep breath, and slams shut the trunk’s lid.

She sends for Leonette, hoping that the other woman will know what to wear to the Reach.

...

Willas was right in thinking that Margaery would greatly enjoy the opportunity to plan for their noble guests.   He hasn’t seen her this energized since before her first marriage to Renly, when the idea of being a queen was still fresh in her mind.  She orders herself new clothing – her first new dresses since she left King’s Landing – as well as new clothes for Tommen.  Willas walks by one afternoon as Margaery instructs the tailor and seamstress on yet another set of clothes for the poor child, and the look on Tommen’s face causes Willas to turn his head, so afraid he is that the boy or his sister will see his laughter.

Margaery even corners Willas.

“I am perfectly content with the clothing I have, Margaery,” he tells her.  She fusses and picks at the edge of his doublet.

“Not even a new doublet? The head of House Tyrell deserves new clothes on occasion,” she says with a pout.

“On occasion,” Willas remarks, lowering her hand.  “This is not such an occasion.”

“Do you not want to impress Sansa?” Margaery asks.  “A new doublet – “

“Out!” Willas proclaims, and Margaery leaves the room with a smirk on her face.

He does reconsider getting a new doublet, though he very much doubts that Sansa will care about his clothing as much as Margaery does.

He still does it, nevertheless.

...

Leonette soon becomes Sansa’s trusty advisor in all things related to the Reach.  It takes little encouragement for Sansa to convince the other woman to accompany her on the journey, and little effort for Garlan to agree to travel home. 

She takes to inviting Leonette to sit with her when she is not at council, and finds it a welcome change.  Leonette’s quiet nature makes Sansa feels at peace, but mostly it’s nice to have someone near her age at court.  Nymeria is older, and more adventurous than Sansa thinks she can be, though she will join them on occasion and spend the time playing with Spirit. 

In the evenings, both Leonette and Garlan often join them for supper, a trend that Tyrion does not seem to mind; in fact, he seems to quite enjoy discussing matters with Garlan, who seems to know as much as Tyrion does at times.

“The second son,” he tells Tyrion when he asks, “as I’m sure you know, has time to find his way in the world.”

“He is being modest,” Leonette points out with a shy smile to her husband.  “You enjoy it.  It is a passion that you and your brother share.”  Garlan smiles and nods at her words, and Sansa is learning not to blush like a maiden at the nearest insinuation of Willas.

“I have heard the library at Highgarden is one of the finest in the Seven Kingdoms,” Tyrion points out.

“I will make sure to give you a tour,” Garlan replies.  “My brother Willas is especially proud of his collection.”

The more she prepares to travel, the more they talk of Willas, and the less often she writes him.  There are council meetings, but it has been months since the Queen was crowned and so much work has been done that the Seven Kingdoms are progressing quite nicely.  She does not want to bore him about the new clothes she has ordered, but she does try to write him once a week, and mostly she talks about spending time with Leonette.  His responses are brief, but warm, and he sounds glad to hear that she has found a friend in the capital.

One afternoon, the articles of clothing that Sansa ordered arrive, and she and Leonette take time looking over them, covering the room in boxes and silks.

“The rain, my lady,” Leonette tells her, frowning.   “It is fierce in the summer and worse in the fall.  It will be so cold this winter in the Reach.”

“But there is sun, too?” Sansa asks, fingering the sun shade that Leonette insisted she bring with her, since her skin is so fair.   

“Days with sun, and days with rain,” a voice says from the doorway, and both women turn to find Garlan Tyrell leaning against the doorframe.  Leonette colors, and Sansa wonders why she blushes so when her husband is around.  From what Sansa remembers, they have been married but some time, and she does not remember her own mother blushing in her father’s presence.

“Lady Stark,” Garlan says with a slight nod, “I see that my wife is well preparing you for your visit to our home.”

Sansa smiles at Leonette.  “I am quite excited to visit the Reach.  It is the furthest south that I have been in the kingdom.  Your lady wife has been a blessing in helping me prepare.”

“Are you packing your sword, m’lady?” Garlan asks.  This earns him a playful swipe from Leonette, and a raised eyebrow from Sansa.  He grins wider.  “I did offer to teach you how to wield it.”

“I will consider it, my lord,” Sansa replies, and glances over at the other woman as her husband leaves the room.   Leonette is grinning wildly, and looks lost in her thoughts so Sansa waits some time before speaking again.

The way that Garlan looks at his wife breaks Sansa’s heart – it is so full of love and devotion that she has to bite her lip and look away. Her own marriage was a disaster – born out of deception and a grab for power.  Nothing at all like the stories Sansa remembers swooning over as a young girl.

Thinking about love and marriage makes Sansa think about her conversation with Willas all those months ago, when she proclaimed to know her mind so well but really was just posturing.  It’s taken her this long to acknowledge that she is not Nymeria and cannot seduce a man, nor does she really care to; there are needs that she has, and there are fantasies that she indulges in, but she is not her Dornish friend.  There is something so pure in the way that Garlan and Leonette regard each other than Sansa wants fiercely, and the realization surprises her. 

Perhaps she doesn’t know her own mind after all.

“You did not know each other before your marriage,” Sansa says, fingering the new boots that have just arrived.  “Did you?”

“No,” Leonette says with a small smile.  “But we found each other agreeable.”

Sansa sighs, reaching for her new traveling cloak. “My mother and father did not know each other when they were married.”

“Were they happy, my lady?” Leonette asks.   Sansa smiles.

“The happiest,” she says.  “They loved each other deeply.”

Leonette pauses, and a serious look crosses her face.  “If you wish to be married once more, perhaps it will be to someone you can form a relationship with.”

Willas’s face flashes before Sansa’s eyes, unbidden, and she sighs again.  “I think that I would like to choose who I marry,” she tells Leonette. 

There have been offers for her hand, sent to Jon who sends them to her with clever little notes attached (his wit is very dry and very truthful, and she appreciates it).  Some Northern lords, others from the Riverlands or the Vale, men of lesser houses who do not know her but think that they would like to.

She burns all of the notes in the fire, and finds small comfort in the letters that Jon writes back letting them know that she is not for the taking.

There are insinuations about the true nature of her relationship with Tyrion, and while the rumors aggravate him more than they do her, she finds she does not like them regardless.  Yet, she does nothing to stop them.  She continues to live in his household, continues to spend her time with him, but she does not do anything or say anything that would encourage him to think she wants more than just a friendship.  For his sake, he acts in the same way, and he protects her like a brother, which Sansa appreciates.

Sansa places her new traveling boots back in their package, and turns to another one. 

“Let’s see about my new cloak,” she tells Leonette.

...

One sunny afternoon, after a week of rain, Margaery asks Willas to take a turn around the garden with her.  After being trapped inside for so long, Willas cannot help but crave the sunshine.

Tommen and Boots run ahead of them (Ser Pounce and Lady Whiskers are somewhere in the verge hunting mice, he suspects), and Margaery calls out that Tommen must not stray too far, the grounds are muddy and he did not change his clothes.

“You are good for him,” Willas tells her, squeezing her hand that rests on his arm.  “He needs that.”

“I try,” she tells Willas with a sigh.  “I do care for the boy.”  The way that her sentence ends makes Willas realize there is more.  Something is troubling his sister.

“What is wrong, little rose?” he asks, using the name they called her when she was but a fat toddler.  “What can the Lord of Highgarden do?”

Margaery laughs.  “Do you know that Grandmother called Father ‘Lord Puff-fish’ in front of Sansa the first time we met?  She went so pale, she was so surprised that Grandmother would say that about our father.”  Margaery looks down at the path.

“Is this about Sansa?” Willas asks, feeling the familiar coldness in the pit of his stomach that makes every sense seemed heightened. 

“Yes – and no,” Margaery says with a sigh.  “It is about everything, Willas, and Sansa is but one part of it.”

As they walk, Margaery talks, her voice low and full of emotion.  “Sansa Stark reminds me of all that happened in King’s Landing.”

“Moreso than Tommen?”

“Moreso than Tommen.  Sansa was betrothed to Joffrey first, and we promised her that we would save her.  We promised to bring her here, and we promised that she would be part of our family, and I wanted that so badly – for her and for you and for myself.  I thought she was so quiet and yet so lovely – like a rose yet to bloom – and I knew that she would be happy here, with you.” 

They reach a bench, and Margaery sits down.  Willas joins her, and she takes his hand in hers.  “I talked about you all the time.  I told her about your birds, and your horses, and how you read to me when I was small, and all the while I thought I saw her petals begin to unfurl.  And I felt, in the midst of all the scheming of Grandmother, that something good would happen.  That you, and that Sansa, would be happy.”

Willas looks down at their hands, at the Tyrell rose sigil on his ring.  He cannot speak, because he remembers clearly the way that Sansa looked at him when she first saw him, and how she told him later that Margaery had spoken of him often.   Whatever seeds Margaery sowed had taken root in the young girl, and managed to survive even after all these years.

“I know, little rose,” is all that Willas finds he is able to say.

“It’s more than that,” Margaery says, her grip tightening, though she does not speak for a few moments.  When she does, her voice is soft.

“I miss who I was,” she says.  “I miss being a young girl.  I am nearly three and twenty and I have been married thrice and widowed twice, and I am raising my last husband as if he is my son.”

Margaery’s voice breaks at the end of her words, and Willas looks to see that his sister has tears in her eyes.   Her lip quavers, and she holds onto him tighter as she closes her eyes.

“And don’t begin to tell me that I will be married one day, and have a household to call my own,” Margaery says in a tight voice, “or that I will be loved for who I am, not merely my beauty which is quickly fading.  Don’t tell me lies, Willas, because they were what I was raised on, and look what happened to me.”

Willas reaches for her, and presses a kiss to her forehead.  “I do not know what to tell you, little rose,” he says, his heart aching for his sister’s pain, and how long she has kept it buried inside.  “I am as lost as you are.” 

He does not want to tell her that she will continue to grow strong, because his family’s words would be poison to her now.

She squeezes his hand once more, and then brushes the tears out of her eyes.  “Little rose is right. I am a summer rose, and winter is not kind to those like me.  It is only the roses in the North that can weather the harshest conditions and still be as fair as ever.”

Margaery rises, drawing her cloak tighter around her small frame.“Tommen!” she cries out.  “I hope that you have not run off on me.”  She picks up her skirts and starts to walk quickly through the garden path, leaving Willas behind on the bench.

Willas would be a fool if he thought Margaery was unchanged by what happened in King’s Landing. He has tiptoed around it since she returned to Highgarden, and that is his fault.  Their father’s sudden death (his heart, they said), Loras at Dragonstone, their Grandmother after the war, his new position – he left it to his mother to see to Margaery.

Her despair is much like his own, he realizes.  He never wanted a crown, or glory – just his books, and his horses, and a fair face to come home to after a good hunt.  After the tournament, with his leg the way it is, everyone seemed to believe that dream something foolish.  He had attempted, for a time (once he felt better walking with his cane), to inquire about the daughters of some of their bannermen, but none of them seemed to look past Highgarden and at him .  If they did, it was with a look of pity.

No one until Sansa Stark, who spent years pretending to be someone other than herself, who was abused at the hands of the most honorable knights in the land and married to the Imp and who saw him, not his wealth or his title or his leg– who has always seen him, maybe since Margaery first mentioned him all those years ago.

Margaery’s position troubles Willas, because there have been offers for Margaery’s hand, but they have been few and far between, and none of them worthy of his sister, in his humble opinion.  He has never been her closet confidant, but this new sadness troubles him, and he does not rise to follow her.

Willas spends too long out in the garden trying to determine what to do about Margaery.  It is Ser Pounce who finds him, rubbing against his leg and reminding him that was well past time to be fed.

He follows the regal cat into the house, a small smile on his face but his soul not quieted in the least.

...

Tyrion arranges that Sansa and Leonette will travel in a wheelhouse, which means it will take them some time to reach Highgarden (but not nearly as long as it takes to reach Winterfell).    She rarely sees him before they depart, he is so busy handling affairs.  The Realm seems to be adjusting well to its new Queen, and so the departure of part of the small council to the Reach should not be too odious.  The Queen has threatened to send ravens every day, and Garlan and Sansa have exchanged amused glances across the council table when she says this.

Before she is to leave, Nymeria stops to visit with her.  She hands her a small box.  When Sansa opens it, the unmistakable smell of moon tea escapes from it.  It is all that she can do to not gag.

“Just in case,” Nymeria says.  “There are other ways to be intimate with a man, but just in case...you have two days before you must drink it, but drink it sooner rather than later.”

“I’ve drunk moon tea before,” Sansa says with a frown.  “Thank you, though.”

Nymeria nods.  “I know I am probably being presumptuous, but I may not be.”

Sansa walks into her chambers, opening a trunk and storing the foul-smelling tea among other items that she will be taking with her.  “I don’t know,” she tells her friend.  “I...want things.  But I’m not sure what he wants, and I don’t want to be presumptuous myself and force myself on him.”

Nymeria snorts.  She is the lone person that Sansa has told about the letters, though not in any specific details.  “The man writes you letters at least twice a week for nine moons.  If a child can grow hidden safe in its mother’s belly for nine moons, love can grow hidden in a letter.”

Sansa considers Nymeria’s words that night. She wants to take all of the letters and reread every line to see if what Nymeria think’s is true, stated plainly before her eyes, but in her heart, she doesn’t need to.  More than anything else, she knows without a second thought that she is in love with Willas, with the kind man who listens to her and writes her letters and who respected her enough to know when she was being foolish, and decent enough to not make her feel horrible about it.

When they depart for Highgarden the next day, her heart is in her chest.  They cannot get to the Reach soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read! I am horrible about responding to reviews but I read and appreciate every one of them!


	9. bloom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all of your lovely reviews! Been very busy but here is the newest chapter :)

In fair weather, it can take nearly a fortnight to reach Kings Landing from the Reach.  In winter, with the torrential rain they have been receiving, it will take nearly a month.

Willas receives letters from Garlan telling them of the wheelhouse that carries Sansa, Leonette, and their ladies getting stuck in the mud, and of days where the rain is so bad that they are confined to inns and the estates of lesser lords found along the Rose Road.

He would be a liar if he didn’t say that he finds the wait to see Sansa again frustrating.   It has been nearly a year since they last saw each other and with each passing day he feels a growing impatience, like a dog confined to the kennels during the rain.

Sansa does not send him many ravens as they travel, so he is forced to ask Garlan about her welfare and that of Lord Tyrion.  It does not take his brother long to guess at the truth beyond Willas’s inquiries.

_The Lady of Winterfell seems to be in good spirits, but I think impatient to reach our destination_.

It rains the next day, and Willas thinks more about Margaery’s dilemma.  It is a good distraction from his feelings about Sansa, and he considers the possibilities.  There are minor lords who are older and there are knights who could be raised to landed gentry if they wed his sister.   She is so tainted with her marriages and the scandal with Cersei Lannister that nobody worthy will marry her, and none that want to marry her are worthy of his little sister.

There is one day of sunshine for every three of rain, and he inevitably spends it outside, first in the stables, then in the kennels, and finally the gardens with Margaery and Tommen.  Today, his mother joins them, her arm looped through Willas while Margaery and Tommen run ahead.

“Has Margaery spoken to you of her sadness?” Willas asks his mother.  Alerie takes in a sharp breath.

“She has alluded to it,” Alerie tells him.  “You know your sister – everything is covered in a veneer of sweetness and light.  There is no such thing as sadness.”  Alerie sighs.  “I blame your grandmother for that, and I blame myself for allowing your grandmother to influence her so.”

“I think that Grandmother would have done what she liked regardless,” Willas tells his mother. “I have been so overwhelmed with my own worries that I not noticed.  It was Margaery herself who told me.”

They walk in silence before Alerie speaks again.  “Perhaps this visit will be a good thing.”

Willas reaches for his mother’s hand, squeezes it gently.  “Perhaps.”

There is a nagging feeling of guilt that eats at him when he thinks at Margaery and what he has failed to do to help her, and his mother seems to know it.  

“Things will sort themselves out for Margaery in time,” Alerie says.  “I know in my heart that they will.  You, however, have been alone for too long.”

Willas is about to respond but Tommen bursts onto the path, several of Willas’s just-weaned pups fresh on his heels.   

“What will your kittens think when they see you with these pups, little one?” Alerie asks, laughing,

The boy smiles, and shrugs his shoulders, running towards the kennels.  The pups follow him, barking and wagging their tails all the way.

“I don’t regret the boy coming here,” Alerie tells Willas.  “He was so miserable in Kings Landing.”  She pauses.  “Margaery is a better mother to the boy that Cersei Lannister ever was.”

There is bitterness in her tone that is uncharacteristic of his mother, and it surprises him. 

“You did not like our former Queen?” Willas asks.  “I’ve never heard you talk uncharitably about anyone before.”

Alerie’s grip tightens.  “Joffrey was not the only monster in the capital, and Tommen was not the only one that bitch sunk in her claws into.  Sansa suffered under her as well.”  Alerie purses her lips.  “Your grandmother  many schemes, and most of them I did not approve of, but there are many nights when I find myself wishing desparately that we had managed to bring Sansa here to Highgarden.”

Willas smiles at his mother.  “Sometimes, I do as well.”  He winks at his mother.  “It would have been much quicker had she not traveled in winter.”

Alerie laughs, and Willas feels a flush rise to his cheeks.  “She will get here soon enough, my son.  Soon enough.”

…

The day that they are due to arrive in Highgarden is the longest day of the journey to Sansa.

The journey itself has been...wet.  And overly long, and when Garlan teases her about being impatient, she can’t do much more than agree with him.  She is ready to stop being cramped inside a wheelhouse, where the wind can creep in past the oilcloth.  She’s ready to sleep in a real bed, not some horrible cot set up in a camp tent.

More than anything else, though, she’s aching to see Willas again.

She does not play their last encounter in her head; instead, it is all the stolen glances, or the way that he looked over at her during the Queen’s coronation, that fill her idle thoughts.   She remembers the way that one corner of his mouth rises just slightly higher than the other when he smiles, but she can’t quite picture the right shade of brown for his eyes – darker than Garlan but lighter than Margaery?

Her fingers itch to touch his face, to map out all of the planes and angles and know him so well she’ll never have to worry that she’s forgotten.

Her thoughts also linger on Nymeria’s words – has she fallen in love with Willas? Sansa does not know what love is, but what she feels for Willas is deeper than friendship.  It’s just tangled up with many other feelings more complicated to name, and it confuses her greatly.

That morning, Leonette tells her that they will be arriving that afternoon, and braids Sansa’s hair back from her face so that her hair falls in waves over her shoulders and her back.   Sansa looks in the mirror and wonders if Willas will find her beautiful.

As they near Highgarden, Sansa peeks out the window to get a better look at the Reach.  From what she’s seen, everything is greener than she’s ever seen, in the North or the South thus far.  There are fields and farmers and crops constantly growing – Tyrion and Garlan discussed the various growing seasons and what can grow in the winter rain at table one night, so she is not surprised to find full fields.  The sun is shining behind a crack in the clouds and illuminates everything and they come to a ridge and –

“That is Highgarden,” Leonette whispers in her ear, and Sansa cannot think of anything more beautiful than this place

It’s more of a large manor house than a castle, and nothing like Winterfell.  Whereas bits and pieces were added to Winterfell by various Stark lords, the seat of House Tyrell is impressively symmetrical, with one tower at each of the four sides, or so Sansa thinks (she can only see the façade, and it too is breathtaking with carved roses and vines).   There are windows everywhere, small windows and large windows and everything here is the very opposite of Winterfell, for even in winter the Reach is only mildly cold. 

Their party turns a corner, so Highgarden is hidden from Sansa’s sight, and then proceeds down a large avenue lined with oak trees so large and old that the avenue is entirely in shade until they come to a large open space.  There is a walkway to the main house that is lined with perfectly manicured shrubs.

“In the summer, there are roses that line the walk,” Leonette tells her, and Sansa smiles.

“It is the most beautiful  home I have ever seen,” Sansa replies.

The wheelhouse door is opened, and Leonette steps out first, with Garlan waiting to help her down.  He looks inside, and reaches for Sansa.

“Come now, Lady Stark, it’s time you finally reach your destination,” he says, and Sansa smiles and takes his hand.

When she steps down into the soft dirt, there is a commotion from the front of the house.  Sansa can see Margaery and her mother step outside, but there is a young blond boy who comes running towards them – towards Tyrion, trailed by several young hunting dogs.

Spirit has been outside the wheelhouse waiting for her, and the growing dog presses herself against Sansa’s skirts.  Sansa glances at Tyrion, and Sword next to him, who sits calmly as Tommen rushes to his uncle.

“I am so glad that you have come to visit, Uncle!” Tommen cries out, falling to his knees to embrace Tyrion.  For his sake, Tyrion looks surprised at this show of affection.  Sansa glances at Margaery, and finds a small smile on her friend’s face.  Margaery catches Sansa’s eye, and looks behind her.

And there is Willas, the entryway.

Their eyes meet, and Sansa smiles.  He smiles in return.   Her heart soars.

“Lady Stark,” Margaery calls out, moving towards her.  Sansa can see Willas behind her, walking slowly.  “It is so good that you have come to Highgarden.”

Margaery embraces her before she turns to Tyrion.  “Lord Tyrion, I cannot express how happy I am that you have honored us with your visit.”

Tyrion, who is now standing by Tommen, kisses the back of Margaery’s hand.  “And I am much appreciative of this time you’ve allowed me with my nephew.”  He looks at Lady Tyrell, and bows to her as well.

By this point, Willas has reached the party, and he says something to Tyrion that Sansa does not quite hear.  Her eyes are so fixed on him - his eyes are darker than Garlan’s, she thought so – and the way that his hair is curly and falls to the nape of his neck, no longer.  His beard is nearly trimmed and when he is done talking to Tyrion, he glances up at Sansa and she takes a deep breath.

“Lady Stark,” he says, reaching for her hand.  “Welcome to Highgarden.”  He bends down to kiss it and Sansa’s heart hammers in her chest.

 “Thank you, Lord Tyrell,” she manages to say even though it feels like a huge effort to speak and not just look, and the way that Willas smiles at her –

Spirit nips her fingers, and Willas looks down at her. 

“This is the famous Spirit, I take it?” he asks.  “Half dire-wolf – quite a strange accomplishment, wouldn’t you say?”

Sansa rubs behind Spirit’s ear as she sniffs Willas.  “I think that direwolves have a way of anticipating what the Starks need,” she says.  “And I needed a companion.”

She can see Willas’s eyes widen slightly, and is surprised when Spirit nudges his hand with her snout.

“Welcome to Highgarden as well, Spirit,” Willas tells the wolf. 

He offers Sansa his arm, which she takes willingly.   She wraps her hand around his arm and leans close to him.  The others will follow, she knows, but she doesn’t care about anything except the man at her side.

 “I am so happy that you are here,” he says to her, his voice low.  It sends a jolt up her spine and she hopes that she is not blushing frantically.

“I am too,” she tells him.  He looks at her, and the look on his face makes her catch her breath.

Sansa has never been happier than she is in this moment.

...

There is nothing as extraordinarily beautiful as Sansa at Highgarden

There is something about the golden tones of the wood and the walls and the paintings that makes her hair blaze in the candlelight.  There is something about Sansa in the midst of all the splendor that Willas has taken for granted that makes his breath catch.  She is beautiful, tall and slender and splendid, and she both fits in with her surrounding and stands apart, far more striking than the works or art or gilded ceilings.

He wants to tell her what he thinks, how he feels, but his breath catches in his throat and he says nothing. He only looks.

He always finds her looking back.

...

Margaery is just as clever as Sansa remembers.

The young woman is an excellent host, making sure that her guests are comfortable and happy.  For Tyrion, that means hours on end with Tommen, often helping the young boy with his lessons or walking the grounds with Spirit and Sword, who do not want to be kept indoors when there is game afoot (this seemed to concern Willas at first, but the wolves went after only rabbits, and there are certainly far too many rabbits at Highgarden).   For Sansa, this means hours spent with Willas.

There are chaperones – Lady Tyrell, or Margaery, but they never stay along, as if they trust Willas and Sansa to behave themselves.  They do behave themselves, surprisingly well in fact, because both of them seem content to merely be near each other for the time being.

“The Reach is so beautiful,” Sansa says one afternoon.  She is in Willas’s solar, and he is catching up on correspondence.  She studies the books, the map on the wall, the beautiful green landscape out the window.  She is happy.  She is content.

“There are many parts of the Seven Kingdoms that are equally beautiful,” Willas tells her.  She can hear the scrape of his chair against the floor as he stands, and then softly walks over to the window.   “For example, Dorne is beautiful itself in its severity.  I assume that the North is just as fine in its own way.”

“Not Kings Landing,” Sansa says, turning to Willas.  He is so delightfully close that she can feel the warmth from his body.   “I don’t think I like it there very much.”

Willas leans against the wall and laughs.  “I can’t blame you.  It smells very strongly in the summer.”  He reaches his free hand for hers, and she takes it.  They do a lot of this, just touching.  She can feel her blood rush every time and she just wants him to kiss her.

“It’s not just that,” she tells him, rubbing her thumb against the back of his.  “It’s everything.  The Queen is lovely, and people are very kind, but I don’t think I belong there.”

The words that Sansa voices are words she hasn’t said before aloud.    They’ve been dwelling in her heart, growing during every small council meeting and every dinner with the Queen or Tyrion or someone else.  They’ve only grown in volume with the hours spent here, with Willas.  There is something in soul that finds great peace in this beautiful place.

“Do you want to return to the North?” Willas asks, and Sansa shakes her head. 

“I don’t belong there,” Sansa tells him, and it’s true.  Rickon is there, as is Jon, but too many years in the South has made the North far too harsh for Sansa.  “My cousin rules in my brother’s place.  There is no role for me.”

There is, Sansa knows – and it would require marrying one of the northern lords who petition Jon every day for her hand.  She does not want that.

What she wants is more complicated than she can express.

“No Kings Landing,” Willas says, looking at their hands, “and no North.  My dear Sansa, where would you find yourself then?”

Sansa takes a deep breath, acting more on instinct and impulse than any common sense.  She draws his hand towards her, lays it above her heart.

“With you,” she says softly.

There is a moment where they look at each other, and panic rises in her throat.   

Willas looks at her, then down at her hands, and then slowly takes an unsteady step forward.  He reaches forward, and cups her face with his warm hand.  Sansa takes a quick breath in, thrilled at the contact but still so terrified.

“Sansa, Lady of Highgarden,” Willas says, and there is a hitch in his voice.  “I think you would do well here.”

He takes that moment to lean forward and press his lips to hers.

Sansa clutches at the front of his doublet with one hand, while the other rests on his pulse, which sings under her fingers.  His lips are soft, his kiss sweet, the way that one hand continues to cradle her face and the other rests now on her hip even sweeter.

Eventually, Willas pulls away, and the look on his face is one that Sansa cannot read.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, terrified that she has been too forward.  Willas laughs – a sharp laugh, so uncharacteristic of what she knows of him, and shakes his head.

“Nothing, dear girl, and everything.”  Willas shakes his head again. He takes a step back, and leans against the wall again.

“You never...” he starts to say, but then looks away. 

“I never do what, my lord?” Sansa asks. 

“You never mention my leg,” he says quietly, and he will not meet her eyes.  “You never seem to notice that I am a cripple.”

His accusation slams into Sansa.  She steps back, surprised.   He is right – she does not consider his leg, or that he is a cripple, but it does not mean she has not noticed.  She does not think much of it.  She has dealt with far worse flaws in men than a leg that does not bend properly.

 “What do I need to mention in regards to your leg, my lord?” she asks coolly.

Willas stammers, “I am not a whole man, Sansa.”   He is nervous, Sansa realizes quickly.  She walks away from the window, trying to gather her thoughts. 

In all of his letters, Willas has never spoken about his injury, nor has he allowed it to slow him down while she’s been here.  He’s out at the kennels first thing in the morning, then the stable, then the aviary.  There is nothing that the injury prevents him from doing –

...yet she remembers similar words spoken to her nearly a year ago, in her chambers.

“My brother was a cripple,” Sansa says, turning to look at Willas.  “His injury did not prevent him from riding, or from ruling Winterfell in my brother’s absence.  I have not seen how your injury prevents you from the running of your estate.”

There are no words to describe the look on Willas’s face.  He look at Sansa with something akin to surprise, as if he is looking at her for the first time.  Sansa moves closer.  She wants to tell him that it’s all right, that she loves him regardless, but the words fail to reach her lips and she realizes that Nymeria is right – that love has grown between them. 

There is a knock on the door, and WIllas looks away.  Sansa follows his eyes to find Margaery in the doorway.

“We will have supper soon,” she tells them both. “My dear Sansa, come walk with me.”

Sansa turns back to Willas.   He smiles, though he has not moved from the wall.

She smiles at Margaery.  “Of course, Lady Margaery.”


	10. burn

**burn**

Margaery somehow finds out that Sansa’s name day is within the coming week, even though Sansa herself has told nary a soul.  Willas finds this not surprising, as Sansa does not seem to be like his sister, who would start planning for her name day far in advance.

“She has not properly celebrated her name day in years,” Margaery tells him as they break their fast one morning.  “I do not ever remember it being mentioned when I was in Kings Landing.”  She plays with her bread, breaking it into smaller pieces.  “I have never heard of anything more cruel.”

Willas agrees, though he does not say so aloud.  He knows that he has grown up privileged, with a family that cares for him, and he knows that Sansa did too, until her father lost his head and her mother died at the Twins.   To live in hiding, with no one knowing your name or your name day...

“What are you planning?” he asks.  Margaery smiles slyly but does not tell.

It doesn’t matter, though – her preparations start almost immediately, and Sansa’s name day feast happens to coincide with the Hand’s departure for Oldtown.   Margaery tells Willas that Tyrion said to spare no expense, generously contributing his own coin.  It makes Willas wary, for while Sansa has told him little about her relationship with Tyrion Lannister other than that their marriage was dissolved, he knows that she is still part of his household.  There are veiled comments she makes about it, for she does not seem comfortable with anyone fussing over her. 

“I don’t see the need for the feast,” Sansa tells him one day.  They are in the library, her lips still swollen from stolen kisses a few moments prior, their hands joined as they sit side by side  She rests her head on his shoulder and Willas feels as if he is the happiest man in the world.

“Why not?” Willas asks, placing a kiss against her forehead.   She sighs.

“Because it is so much expense and so much trouble all for me,” Sansa tells him.  She tilts her head back to look at him.  “I prefer _not_ to have attention focused on me.”

Willas smiles.  “Then think of Margaery.  Consider this as her way of showing affection for you.”

“I remember her at court,” Sansa says.  “She was so kind to me.”

“Highgarden is not court, and Margaery has not been a queen for some time, but I dare say that the desire to entertain the masses flows through her veins.”  Willas chuckles.  “So I ask that you do this, if not for you, than for my dear sister.”

Sansa sits up, turning to face him.  “I will suffer it for Margaery,” she tells him, “and for you, and your family.   I have never felt more welcomed in a place than Highgarden.”

He brushes his thumb against the back of her hand.   He wants to tell her things – so many things, words of love and devotion, but they fail to leave his lips.  There is nothing he can say that will adequately express how he feels, so he leans forward and places his lips against hers.

He can only hope she will understand him.

...

There is a subtle shift in Sansa’s relationship with Willas after that day in his solar, when she told him that she did not care about his injury.  There is less hesitation on his part, it seems – he is now more than willing to steal kisses as often as she permits, but she never says no.  There is nothing quite as thrilling as kissing him, be it in a dark corridor or behind a hedgerow as they walk in the gardens. 

There is a profound shift in how they relate to one another.  She knows, in her heart, that this may be love – that there is no one she cares for more than Willas, no one she wants to be with, no one she wants to protect.  Fierce devotion burns inside her as she gazes at him from across the room, and her looks are always met with something similar.  She recognizes this feeling, vaguely, as being similar to how she felt about her family, but there is more to it than just that.  There is a feeling inside her that grows in his presence, as if something inside her recognizes him and wakes when he is near her.

She is unafraid to sit beside him in the library as he shows her one of his rare books, their shoulders touching.    Sometimes they talk for hours and while she is not ashamed of the time she spends with Willas, she always feels like a little child caught doing mischief when Tyrion find her.

Tyrion never says anything about her increased time with Willas, but she can tell that he has noticed.  She’s not sure what he would say or how he would react, and so she doesn’t say much of anything to anyone about it.

These feelings bubble inside her, threatening to overtake her, when Lady Tyrell requests her presence.  She leaves Willas’s side only to be escorted into a room full of tailors and seamstresses and other people milling about, leaving her confused.

“If my daughter is correct,” Lady Tyrell says, “your name day will be soon.  She insists on celebrating you.”  Her smile is kind, and Sansa smiles back warily.  She does not like being the center of attention.

“Of course, Lady Tyrell, but really it is no bother – “

“These women are here to help make your new dress,” Lady Tyrell tells her.  Sansa is taken aback, ready to insist that she doesn’t need new clothing, but Lady Tyrell comes closer and takes Sansa’s hands in her own.

“I know that my son cares for you deeply,” she tells Sansa.  “I have seen a change in him.  You make him happy.”  She squeezes Sansa hands before letting go.  “Consider this my gift, to welcome you to Highgarden.”

The words seem more than just pleasantries, and Sansa feels a sob rise in her chest.  Would she want to stay here, in Highgarden, with Willas and his family? Spend her days not helping the people of the land but the people of the Reach? She knows the roles that the Lord Protector’s wife must perform, she knows that she could be of use here, and there would be _Willas_...

Yes.  She would stay in Highgarden.  She would have Willas, if he asked.

“Thank you, Lady Tyrell,” she stammers out.

Lady Tyrell smiles.  “You are very welcome, my dear girl.” 

...

Sansa wakes before her feats with a feeling of absolute giddiness.  She feels as if she is a child against, excited to celebrate her name day, eager to open her gifts.

It is when she takes a moment to look out the window to remember that she is no longer in Winterfell, and that nearly all of her family are dead.  At eight-and-ten, she is older than all of them, even Robb when he died.  There is a sharp pain in her heart at knowing that she has outlived her older brother.

She does not call her maid; she brushes her hair and watches the sun rise.  She remembers how her mother used to plait her hair in small braids, how she used to put oil at the ends to keep it shiny and smooth.  She remembers that Arya would never sit still long enough to get her hair combed, and that Rickon had wild curls when he was young…

Sansa grips the brush tightly, trying to remember what they all looked like.  Her father she remembers clearly, because she can never forget the day that Joffrey took his head and called it justice.  She thinks she remembers what her mother looks like, because everyone tells her she favors her mother, and sometimes from certain angles, she thinks she can see Lady Catelyn in the curve of her cheek or the color of her blue eyes.  She can remember clearly the feel of her mother’s hands on her shoulders when she finished with her hair.

She cannot remember a single detail of Arya’s face, or that of Bran or Robb.

She can remember playing in the snows, or chasing them through the castle, and sometimes she thinks she remembers the sound of their voices, but they are have been lost to her for so long that they are fading away from her memory like they never existed at all.

Something deep inside of her snaps, then, and tears come like they have not for years and years, ever vestige of control that she has built up falls apart and washes away with her tears, leaving something else in its place.

This is how Tyrion finds her, sobbing on the floor and still clutching her brush in her hand.  He kneels down beside her, and removes the brush.

“It is your name day,” he says softly.  Through the tears, Sansa can see that he is uncertain of what to do.

“I am older than Robb,” she says.  Tyrion nods, as if he understands.

“I don’t remember what they look like – Arya or Robb or even my mother,” she tells him, wrapping her arms around her knees and feeling so very childish.  “When I think of my father, all I can think of is his head on a pike. I am a woman grown and I do not have my family and what I do remember is slipping away.”

“The trouble with growing older is that we become more aware of what we lose,” Tyrion tells her, “and it’s harder and harder to retrieve what it than when we were younger.”

He holds out his hand, and she reaches for it.  They sit like that for some time, Sansa’s breathing coming in ragged gaps, Tyrion seated beside her.

“I remember you in Kings Landing,” he tells her, “when Joffrey and his Kingsguard – “

She flinches at the memory, her grip tightening.

“I remember thinking you would survive us all.  You keep everything buried so deep, Sansa, that I wondered if you felt anything at all.  And when I found you in the Vale, this pale cool stranger with such sad eyes, I knew that you had made yourself into that ice that you Northerners are so found of.”

“I am a Stark,” she says softly, feeling her breathing struggle to return to normal.  “I am ice.”

“And you are a wolf,” Tyrion points out.  “You may think you are ice, but I believe there is a fierce wildness inside you that has constantly rebelled at being kept so at heel.  You are many things, Sansa Stark – you do not have to be just one.”  Tyrion smiles, looking up at the ceiling.  “After all, I am both a lion and an Imp, and while I do my best to be as fierce as possible, I embrace the fact that I am utterly entertaining in my pursuit of ferocity.”

Sansa smiles.  “Thank you, Tyrion,” she tells him.

He reaches to his belt, and withdraws a money pouch.  “For you,” he tells her, “on the occasion of your name day.  Enough gold coin to establish your own household in Kings Landing.”  He does not meet her eyes when he places the gold pouch in her hands, removing his own in the process.  “You are an independent woman now, Sansa, not beholding to father or brother or those that pretend to be either.”

She cups her hands around the heavy sack of coins, unsure of what to do.  She has long desired freedom of her own but this is too much to take – this should be shared with others of the kingdom –

Tyrion seems to know her mind, for he reaches his hands over her and closes them around the gift.  “Be free, little wolf, be as free as you can,” he tells her, looking at her steadily even as she trembles.

She nods, hands still cupping the pouch, back against the wall, as he leaves. 

It is only later, when she is dressed and ready for the day, that she dares open the pouch and consider Tyrion’s gift.  

...

The morning of Sansa’s nameday, Willas receives a visit from his mother.

She stands in the doorway, watching as he laces his doublet, a small smile on her face.

“You have changed little since you were a child,” Alerie tells him crossing the floor to stand in front of him.  Her fingers reach out and brush across his shoulder.  “You were a meticulous about your clothing then, so careful that all your laces on your doublet were correct and that any rips or tears were immediately mended.”

Willas eyes his mother carefully.  “I don’t think you came here to share memories, Mother,” he tells her, sitting down on the bed to adjust his boots.  His mother nods.

“No, I did not,” she tells him.  “I came to give you something.”

Willas has not noticed that one of his mother’s hands has been tightly clenched until she opens it and holds out a piece of jewelry – a golden rose on a long, thin chain.

“Your father gave this to me when he began his courtship,” Alerie tells him.  She reaches for his hand, places the chain and its charm in his palm.  “A mere trinket, but I think it would look quite lovely on Lady Sansa.”

Willas closes his palm instinctively, the petals of the rose pressing against his skin.  “And why would I give Lady Sansa a token of affection such as this?” he asks, trying to keep his voice level.  His mother knows he cares for Sansa but she does not know the deep affection he has for her, nor the dilemma he faces each day when he looks at her.

“You do not see it, but I do.  You have grown with her.  You smile more now that you have someone with whom to share your confidences.” 

“Who is to say that I did not already share those with Garlan?” Willas asks.

“It is different when it is someone you love,” Alerie says, sitting beside him on the bed. “I never noticed it myself, but I have with my own children.  You may love your siblings, and care for them, but when you meet the partner of your heart, it is quite different indeed.”

Willas opens his palm and studies the rose, with its delicate petals.  He can picture the charm around Sansa’s neck, the gleam of the gold in the sun as they walk through the gardens, and he sighs. “Perhaps you are right.  Perhaps I’ve spent so long thinking that I’ll never find the partner of my heart that it’s difficult for me to admit when I have found her.”

The words come automatically, but he is surprised at this confession even though he has thought it near a thousand times.  There’s something so utterly freeing about it, these words that he says, that he cannot help but feel his heart lighten, as if some load has suddenly be lifted.

His mood carries him through the day, through a walk in the gardens with a subdued Sansa and to the feast, where Margaery has outdone herself.  The music, the food, and the hall are all splendid, but it is not until Sansa enters that he truly is speechless.

She wears gold and silver, her hair shines like copper, and she is the most arrestingly beautiful sight he has ever seen.  She smiles at him, and he finds that he truly has nothing to say.

They drink, and eat, and she dances with Garlan while he watches.  Everyone is so merry that it takes Sansa practically standing him up to get him to take walk with her.

They weave through the hedges and avoid the maze, stealing kisses at every corner.  She tastes like lemon and Arbor Gold and Willas tangles his hands in her hair as she sighs against his lips.  They eventually make it back inside, but they do not stop kissing.  It does not matter, as he walks her to her chambers, for the noise from the hall is great and Willas knows that everyone will be distracted for hours yet to come.

Seven bless Margaery – she truly is of great worth.

Willas kisses Sansa outside of her chambers, catching her lip between his teeth, feeling her fingers on the nape of his neck.  He is so close to being gone that it takes all of his self-possession to pull away from her.  He will kiss her in the corridor, but he will calm his breathing down.

Sansa, breathing heavy, looks at him and says “No.”  She lays her hand on his arm.  “Please.  Stay here.  Stay with me.”  Her eyes are lidded, lips well kissed, and he feels as if his blood is on fire.

Willas looks down at his hand on her hip, and takes a deep breath.

“Your virtue – “he starts, and she shakes her head.

“Let’s not talk of that,” she tells him, “for it is long gone, lost in the Eyrie years ago.”  She presses into him again, her kisses hungry and desperate and his arms find a way to wrap around her, press her against the wall, and the cold stone against his knuckles sober him, if for a moment.  He steps back, releases her from his grip, feels shame burn high on his cheeks.

“Sansa,” he says softly, “not like this.  Not desperate and frantic in some hall.”

Sansa, back against the wall, takes a step forward.   Her eyes are bright and clear.

“Willas,” she says firmly.  “I told you well over a year ago that I knew what I wanted.  Then, I was so horribly wrong. But now...

“But now?” he asks, terrified of her answer.

Sansa smiles like the cat that has caught a mouse.  “Now, it’s my name day,” she tells him, wrapping her long arms around his neck, “and you wouldn’t disappoint a lady on her name day, would you my lord?”

Willas exhales.  The tension that has been building in his spine snaps, and he rests his head against her shoulder.

“You are a cruel woman, Sansa Stark,” he tells her, brushing a kiss against her neck.  “Entirely too cruel.”

...

Sansa feels victorious, but only slightly, because the ache that has been there for so long, the one that pools between her thighs when Willas looks at her – it grows, more and more, as she opens the door to her chambers and beckons Willas inside. 

She has dismissed her maids, telling them that she will find them if she has need of them, but she does not expect she will have much need to anyone save Willas tonight.

“Do you know how to unlace my stays, my lord?” she asks, turning her back towards him.  She does not assume Willas is inexperienced, and when his knuckles trace the curve of her spine while another hand spans her waist, she is not disappointed.

He exhales a soft laugh, the warm air a jolt across her shoulder and Sansa is surprised to find that she is shaking.

“I see that you do not worry about my virtue, Lady Sansa,” he says.  She feels lightheaded when he reaches to undo the first one, pulling her back with her dress until she rests against him.  She can feel him against her and she wonders why he protests so much.

She can’t do much more than moan when his mouth finds its way to her neck, and she can feel the movement of his fingers and lips at the same time until her dress feels loose and he lets her go.  She takes a step forward and slips the material off of her form.  It is a shame that the fair dress lays in a puddle on the floor, but the look on Willas’s face is worth it.

His eyes close tight and he runs a hand over his face.  When he speaks, it is in a choked voice.

“You’re not wearing smallclothes.”

Sansa smiles and takes a step forward.  “I have stockings and shoes,” she tells him, and he lets out another shaky breath.  His hand reaches for her, cupping her face in his palm.

“You are so beautiful,” Willas says, his eyes never leaving her.  “Forgive me for saying this, but I never thought –“

She takes a step forward to silence his declaration with a kiss.  When will this man realize she wants him for _him_ and she doesn’t care about any silly old injury?  Her fingers make fast work of his doublet and suddenly it is bare skin against bare skin, and she moans into his mouth when her breasts brush against his bare chest.

She leads Willas to the bed, where she has him sit down while she makes fast work of his breeches and boots.  He pulls her back up onto the bed before she can get any ideas (there will be time for that later, she hopes), and lays her back on the bed.  She kicks off her shoes on the way. 

His fingers trace down from her knee, rolling down her stockings and she shivers at the contact.  Her spine arches when he moves his fingers upwards towards her center, and she whimpers when Willas makes contact.  She’s wanted this for so long that she feels as if her skin is burning, too hot like wildfire, and the feel of his mouth pressing kisses at the joint of her knee, the inside of her thigh –

She buries her head in the pillow and moans when the tension breaks.  In the distance, she feels as if Willas laughs, a vibration against her stomach that she can’t differentiate from her own body.  She looks up at him with hazy eyes, and cards her fingers through his hair.

“Are you laughing at me?” she asks, and Willas shakes his head.

“I’m happy,” he tells her, falling beside her on the bed.  She leans over and kisses him lazily.  He does not seem to object.

When she can finally move again, she abandon’s his mouth to press kisses down his neck, down his stomach, stopping at the trail of hair that leads further south.  She swings her legs over his hips and takes him in hand.

“I fear you’ll ruin me quickly,” he tells her, so she does not stroke, just adjusts their position until he is filling her completely.  His hands find her hips and urge her forward, slowly.  She leans down and kisses him once more, biting him accidently when he surges upward.  She matches her hips to his, and feels that burning once more as it spreads across every surface of her body, every single bit of herself on fire as Willas traces his hands up her sides and down her thighs and back on her hips, her hands in his hair, their kisses more breathless, more like panting against each other’s mouths as their hips –

She lays on his chest for some time, feeling sweat cool between them, the gentle play of Willas’s fingers on the small of her back.

“I could stay like this forever,” she says, reaching up to kiss him.  He tenses at her words, but he does not pull away, kisses her back softly.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to give you,” Willas says, brushing her hair from her face and cupping her chin.  “Would you fetch my breeches for me?”

Sansa sits up.  She finds his breeches on the side of the bed and leans over to get them.

“In the front pocket,” he tells her.  “It is small.”

Sansa follows his instructions, drawing a small golden chain with a small charm – a rose – out of his pocket.

“How lovely,” she says.

“It’s for you,” he tells her, sitting up beside her.  He leans over his shoulder, his body pressed against her back, and she feels desire pool within her belly once again.   “May I put it on?”

She undoes the clasp and holds it for him to place around her neck.  When he does, she feels the weight of the rose between her breasts, a small weight but a comfortable one.   She runs her finger along the fine chain.

“My mother received it from my father, during their courtship,” Willas tells her, watching her finger.  “I thought, perhaps...”

He trails off, and she turns to face him.  “Perhaps what?”

“Perhaps you would accept it as a similar token?” he asks. 

“Are you suggesting you would like to court me?” Sansa says, turning to face him, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

“Despite doing things backward...” Willas says with a laugh, “yes.  I want you to stay at Highgarden.  I want you to be here, with me, in this bed or any other bed of your choosing.  I want you to sit by my side, as my wife.”

Sansa closes the distance between them with a kiss. The charm presses between them and she sighs as Willas pulls her into his lap.  She can feel the weight of him between her legs, and she wonders if it would always be like this, this all-consuming desire.

“I have come,” she tells him between kisses, “I would stay.”

He pulls back to study her in the candlelight.

“I’m glad,” he says, hands ghosting up her sides, his eyes on his gift before pulling her against him oncemore.


	11. Interlude: Winterfell

**Interlude: Winterfell**

There are days when Jon thinks he will never be warm again, and he has been north of the Wall.

Winterfell is cold – colder than he ever remembered it being, and he wonders if it’s because of the ghosts that Old Nan swears haunts these halls.  He knows better – he knows that there are cracks in the walls brought on by the heat of the fire, and that there are too many people and not enough furs at times.  He has too many mouths to feed and too many ravens with too many letters and he wonders if it wouldn’t be better if he stayed in Kings Landing when the Queen – his aunt – asked him.  

Jon never thought he’d remember his days of being a bastard fondly, but sometimes that’s more appealing than whatever he is now. 

Jon has led men into preparation for battle and then battle itself, he has turned coat and turned back again, but he is ill-prepared for the title he now wears and the houses that now claim him.  The story of his parents and his birth is the story of a kingdom and a family broken, and there’s a sharp awareness of just what his life has cost his new-found kin, as well as what it has robbed him of – his past.

He curses Theon Greyjoy from morning to night, and then Roose Bolton and his bastard son when he looks at the grounds he once loved, looks for faces that he can’t find anymore.  Rickon runs wild as Bran and Arya used to, and he keeps looking for Robb at every corner.  What’s left of the godswood is his sole comfort, and he remembers watching his then-supposed-father clean his sword with a precision he still strives to imitate.   There is something in the rhythm of his hand on the blade that soothes his weary mind and his mind is easily lulled by this small act.

He is here, avoiding ravens asking for his cousin’s hand and requests from master builders, when Rickon finds him.

“You better come,” the boy says.  “Old Nan says there’s a ghost at the gate come back to haunt us all.”

Jon follows Rickon and his direwolf back to the keep, Ghost trailing at his heels.  He is not sure what madness the old woman is spouting now, for if anyone is dead and returned it is her, but she keeps RIckon happy and that is more than most do these days save the former Hand of the King, Ser Davos.

Ser Davos is also there, waiting for Jon and his small party.  The man has been a good friend and ally, helping him as they rebuild the one great Winterfell, so the look of concern on his face troubles Jon greatly.

There is a woman at the gate – no, still a girl, dressed in black with a sword at her waist, dark hair pulled back from her face.  She is glaring at Old Nan as the woman shouts, stilled only by Jon’s hand on her shoulder.

“It’s your mother, come back to haunt us all,” Old Nan tells Jon, and the girl in the gate rolls her eyes.

Jon is tired of being told there are ghosts everywhere because he knows that it’s true, that he’ll always be haunted by those he lost who once lived here with him.  He is tired of feeling like he will never escape the past and that he will always be haunted by all of the poor decisions that he has made and all of the decisions made before him.  He is trapped, and he is tired and cold and he wants nothing more than to wake up and pretend this is a dream.

“Are you a ghost, my lady?” he asks.  “We do not take kindly to ghosts here – we’re haunted enough as it is.”

He glances at the girl, then at his direwolf, who does not seem to be at all moved by her presence.  The expression on the girl’s face changes from one of hostility to something else entirely – something familiar, so familiar it frightens him.

“It’s me, Jon,” a small voice says, and the girl looks at him with big grey eyes.  “It’s me, Arya.”

“My cousin is dead, lost somewhere in Kings Landing,” he tells her but even as he says it, Shaggydog approaches her, followed by Rickon.  She bends down, and the direwolf sniffs her face before laying down in front of her.

“Is it really you?” Rickon asks, and Jon’s heart breaks because Rickon barely has any memory of his sisters, though Sansa still lives. 

The girl smiles – Arya’s smile, Jon would recognize that anywhere, and he knows she speaks the truth.


	12. tend

**tend**

 

Willas rises in the early hours and, with the assistance of Sansa (or, rather, the lack of assistance – she spent more time trying to help him undress than put his clothes on) slips out of her chambers into the hall.  It is quiet at this time of the morning – not even the sun is up yet and he assumes that most of the guests have just gone to bed.  Silently, he does his best to make it to his chambers unseen.

He doesn’t succeed. 

Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen, is lingering in the hall and he merely raises his eyebrow at seeing Willas appear from the direction of Sansa’s chambers. 

“My lord Hand,” Willas says, bowing his head. 

“Lord Tyrell.”  Tyrion turns towards his chambers, then looks back at Willas. “Why don’t you come join me for a drink - you and I are the only ones that appear to be awake at the moment.”

Willas hesitates, but only for a moment.   It would be bad form for him to not join his guest, but he is also worried what Tyrion might do with the knowledge that he has been with the Lady Stark.  Even if she has accepted his proposal, he knows that others must be told and some, like her cousin or the Queen, might not approve of the match.  It would be the joining of two powerful houses much like the marriage of his own parents and Sansa's as well, but it really depends on what the Queen thinks about these sort of alliances.

He doesn't think the argument that he loves Sansa may carry much water.

Willas nods.   Tyrion smiles.

"Brilliant.  I will call for more wine.  There has to be at least one servant still awake in this grand house."

He follows the other man into his chambers.  Tyrion is already summoning for wine, and Willas walks over to the nearby table.  He is surprisingly not tired, despite not getting any sleep last night (he may have dozed off for a while, but any movement of Sansa’s body against his was an absolute distraction).  There are some figs and assorted fruit left over from some meal, and Willas learns he is astoundingly hungry. 

“Help yourself, Lord Tyrell,” Tyrion calls over his shoulder, and so Willas does.  “I must admit, I am completely sated.  Your sister knows how to hold a proper feast.  The wine, the drinking, the dancing – such a lovely time.”

“Margaery quite enjoys namedays,” Willas says awkwardly, sitting down in the nearest chair.

“Quite a peach, young Margaery.” The wine has already arrived and Tyrion takes a seat in a nearby chair.  “Always such a lovely young girl. Much like our dear Lady Stark.”

Willas chokes on his wine.  Tyrion smiles over the rim of his goblet.

“I may not be Lord Varys, but I do know what is occurring in my household,” he tells Willas, who feels his heart rate speed up terribly.  “I did not read the letters, so do not worry.”

“Would you like me to apologize, my lord?” Willas asks, nervous and anxious and frustrated all at once.  He does not spy on Margaery’s correspondence, though she is in his household, and he is both offended and emboldened – offended that he should be called out in a such a manner, and emboldened by Sansa’s love and affection, the afterglow of which still hangs around him like a mantle.

Tyrion shakes his head.  “Apologize for what? For making Sansa happy?  I have known Sansa Stark for a very long time, Lord Tyrell.  When we first met, she was but a young girl at Winterfell with a head full of stories about knights in shining armor.”  Tyrion takes a swig of his wine, and stares into the dredges of the goblet.   “I watched, as first my nephew, then my sister, disabused her of her childish notions.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Sansa be anywhere near as carefree as she is here.”

Willas nods, his heart heavy with the thought that Sansa should have always been here, should never have married Tyrion, but he pauses.  There is affection in the tone that Tyrion takes when he discusses Sansa – not that of a lover, but that of a brother and a protector.  He doesn’t see that Sansa needs protecting, but there’s much to Sansa and she’s only begun to share with him.

“I assume, Lord Tyrell, that your intentions towards Lady Stark are well-meaning?” Tyrion asks, breaking Willas out of his musings.

“She has agreed to stay here with me as my lady wife, if that is what you are asking,” Willas tells him.  The words feel right as they slip off his tongue, and he knows that this is right.

Tyrion nods.  “She has a dowry – “

“There is no need  - “

“Ah, well,” Tyrion says.  “I gave her a substantial amount of gold coin for her name day, which I would say she could use to buy a dress if I wasn’t sure that Lady Margaery would insist on outfitting the bride herself.”

Willas smiles at the image of Margaery orchestrating the wedding celebration.  “I’m sure she’ll make do.”

Tyrion nods, and opens his mouth to speak, but there is a knock at the door.  A servant rushes to open it, and returns moments later, yawning but with a letter in hand.  He gives it to Tyrion, who breaks the blood-red seal (Willas can make out the crest of three dragons, or so he thinks).   Tyrion reads it, and then sighs.

“Well,” he says, holding the letter out to Willas, “It seems that Arya Stark has returned from the dead.  This should make things interesting.”

...

The balcony outside Sansa’s window must not seem much use in winter.  That must explain some of the surprise on Margaery’s face when she finds Sansa there,  wrapped in the softest blanket that she has ever felt (necessity made all the blankets at Winterfell so heavy and harsh against one’s skin).  It is early morning, and everything in the immense garden is covered in frost.

Sansa takes a moment to think if she will like this view, or one similar, every morning instead of what she has at Kings Landing, or what she had at Winterfell. 

She thinks she might like it very much.

There is a mug in front of her, tendrils of steam escaping into the cool winter air.   Sansa can see Margaery’s nose wrinkle.  She must know what is in it.

Sansa had called the master, had asked him to prepare the tea Nymeria had given her, but even as it sits here before her, she cannot bring herself to drink it.  She’s had moon tea before, remembers all too well the pain that comes with each bitter sip, the blood that follows. 

It’s not fear that stays her hand from placing the mug at her lips – pain is temporary, and bleeding stops – but the thought of Willas, and what the noxious brew might prevent.

Margaery takes a seat at the small table.  “Good morning, my dear.  I hope you slept well – I did not see you stop dancing for even a moment.  You must have been tired.”

Sansa finds she cannot hide her smile at what kept her from sleeping last night.  “Thank you so very much, Margaery, for arranging such excellent celebrations.”

Margaery raises an eyebrow.   She looks down at the mug, then back at Sansa.  Her expression grows somber.

“It is not my place to speak as such to you,” Margaery says, her voice low, “but I feel as if we have been like sisters in the past, and once again now that we are both here.”  She reaches for Sansa’s hand, holds it between hers.  “I must warn you that moon tea is not to be taken lightly.  There are consequences, Sansa, to this decision.”

“I have taken moon tea before,” Sansa tells her.  Margaery’s face looks so sad that Sansa squeezes her hand.  “It serves a purpose.”

“But now?” Margaery asks.  “It is the pity of our sex that we cannot control something that is so dear to us except by such foul means.  Think, my dear Sansa, if whatever this might be is something you want to lose.”

Margaery’s words shake Sansa.  The thought of Willas has stayed her hand – because she loves him, and wants to be with him, and be his lady here in Highgarden.  She hasn’t allowed herself to think of a family, because families can be taken away and lost in the abyss of war and death, and that is the cruelest thought imaginable.

And yet...”Have you any stories of Willas, when he as a babe?” she asks Margaery, knowing that there were always stories of Robb the firstborn, so there must be stories of Willas.  Margaery is practically beaming, her smile so large.

“They say he was the loudest of the four of us, though none of us would believe that now.  He had the curliest hair – blond, it was, all our hair was so Mother says, and then it fades to brown as we grow older.  So loud, and so difficult when he was first born, but out of all of us he was the only babe to sleep through the night, and the first to learn to speak before he learned to walk.” Margaery laughs.  “It’s funny to me, now, because he is always the last to speak – he always waits to see what others will say first, always considers each word so carefully.”

Sansa smiles at the memories.  She remembers screaming at her father that she wanted beautiful blond babies and it seems a cruel joke that she might actually get them.  But she finds she doesn’t mind – she hasn’t thought about children in ages, but suddenly the thought of a family with Willas is something she wants very much.

There is a commotion in her chambers, and they both turn to find Tyrion striding towards them, Willas following.  There is a letter in Tyrion’s hand.

“Good morning Lady Margaery, Lady Stark,” he says.  “Winterfell has sent word to us.”  He holds the letter out to Sansa.

She takes the letter from him and opens it.  She reads it once, then again, and finally a third time.

“This is a cruel joke,” Sansa tells Tyrion.   She can hear her voice shake, and she is not surprised.  The words in that letter would make anyone angry.

“It is not, Sansa,” he responds.  “Jon saw her.  The direwolves, Sansa...”

Sansa glances over her shoulder at Spirit, sleeping by the bed after having spent the night hunting on the grounds of Highgarden.  Spirit has barely moved with the entrance of these three into her quarters, but Sansa trusts them, as Spirit must know.  If Shaggydog recognized Arya...

She gasps for air, suddenly unable to breathe, and looks for Willas.  He is at her side, slipping his hand into hers, and when she feels the warmth of his hand she breaks.  A sob shatters through her, and only the tight grip of Willas’s hand holds her steady as she breaks apart.

...

Willas stays.  He does not know what to do other than stay. 

She is not resting, even though Margaery tried her best to get her to lie down.   She paces, pauses, stares into space, puts clothes into trunks and then takes them back out again.  There is a restless energy he’s never seen before that he likes to a lion pacing a cage.  He laughs.

“What’s funny?” Sansa asks him, whipping her head around to face him at the tiniest noise.

“Nothing, really,” he tells her, rising from his seat beside the window.  He reaches out his hand for her and she comes, threading her fingers through his.  “Only just...you remind me of a trapped lion, and you were once a lion for a very long time.”

Sansa, to his surprise, smiles a little.  “I was, wasn’t I? But now I shall be a rose, and what exactly do roses do?” she asks, wrapping her arms around his neck.   He reaches up to stroke the curve of her cheek, to press a gentle kiss against her lips.

“They stay, firmly planted, in the soil,” he tells her.  “They grow strong.”

“Firmly planted until some gardener uproots them,” Sansa says, moving away and back to the window.

“I don’t think you’ll ever be a rose,” Willas tells her.  “You’re too much of a wolf, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  Perhaps that is more of what you are – a trapped wolf, ready to spring free.”

There is a knock on the door, and Wiillas turns to find Tyrion there.  “Lord Hand,” he says with a bow.

“If I may speak to Lady Stark alone,” Tyrion asks.  Willas nods, and looks at Sansa, who seems to acknowledge him only barely.  Her thoughts are focused completely on Tyrion, and it allows Willas time to leave.

Margaery finds him in the corridor, looping her arm through his.  “She needs to rest, the poor girl,” Margaery laments, “or she will give herself a fit.”

“I think Sansa will be just fine,” he tells Margaery.  “She’s stronger than she looks.”

“She loves you, you know.” Margaery stops and turns to face him.  “Have you –?”

“She has agreed to stay here,” Willas says, “as my wife.  But I have not told anyone – “

“Mother must know,” Margaery demands.  “We must find her now.”  She pulls Willas along with her, but for the first time in his life, he does not mind the haste.

...

When Willas leaves, Sansa feels an emptiness inside of her that makes her tremble.  She wants Willas here – she _needs_ him here.   But Tyrion would not request to speak with her alone...

The last few hours have been a mixture of happiness and apprehension.  The thought of Arya, alive all this time, feels like someone has ripped out Sansa’s heart and trampled it.  And if it is a lie...

By the doorway, she finds broken stoneware – her tea, now gone, evaporated in the morning air.  Whether she knocked it over or Margaery did, Sansa may never know. 

“How are you feeling?” Tyrion asks, bringing her back to the present.  Sansa wraps her arms across her chest.

“It feels as if I’ve been broken in two.  I never thought I would see her again.  I never – we never got along as children, but when she disappeared, people told me they knew where she was.  They were all lies, and I do not want this to be a lie as well.”  She turns from the window and faces him.  There is another letter in his hand, and she wonders what words it contains.

“I doubt that it is,” Tyrion tells her.  “I do not think some imposter could fool your brother, or his wolf.  Even your cousin agrees that it is her.”

Sansa sighs, sitting in a nearby chair.  “I cannot wait to see her again.  I missed her more than I ever thought.”  She can still remember how much Arya annoyed her as a young girl, and how much she’s desired her sister’s presence since their father was killed.  Of all the aches in her heart, her lost time with Arya has been the worst.  At least she was in Kings Landing, being used as a pawn that they needed to keep alive – who knows where Arya has been?

“The Queen is coming for you,” Tyrion tells her.  Sansa is surprised.

“The Queen?”

“And Prince Aegon.”

Sansa sighs, shaking her head.  “Of course.   He once asked me if I looked like Lady Lyanna, and I told him no, my sister Arya supposedly did.”  She frowns.  “Of course he’ll want to meet her.”

“Arya is near sixteen years old,” Tyrion tells her.  “Winterfell could very well fall to her.  From the ravens I’ve received, any lord in the North who was not already at Winterfell is hurrying to it.”  Tyrion pauses.  “The North would welcome either of you as the heir to Winterfell.   You both are Ned Stark’s children and the North did not forget.”

“And the Queen is to take me to Winterfell?” Sansa asks.  “Will you join us?”

Tyrion shakes his head.  “No, I am still to go to Oldtown once the Queen leaves. However...” he says slowly, “You may very well want to arrange an audience alone with the Queen and Lord Tyrell if you want to avoid any talk of being sent to Winterfell permanently.”

Sansa starts, gripping the edge of the table in her surprise.  “What do you mean?” she asks carefully.  She knew that they were not discrete, she knew –

“Lord Tyrell has told me that you will become the Lady of Highgarden,” Tyrion says.  “A good choice, for the man is very much in love with you and I believe you are with him. The Reach has moderate temperatures, you will never lack for food or money, and it is an ideal match between two great houses.”

“That is not why I will stay,” she tells him.  “I do love him, and I will be happy here.”

“And you are not happy in Kings Landing,” Tyrion says with a sad smile.  “I can hardly blame you.  You do well at court, and on the small council, but I do believe that you would thrive as Lady Tyrell more than you would in the capital.”  He reaches for her hand.  She takes it, feeling the warmth of his palm and remembering the day so long ago when they were joined as man and wife.

“You deserve more than what you’ve been given,” Tyrion tells her.  “I wish the best for you.”

Sansa smiles.  “And I wish the best for you as well.”  She squeezes his hand.

Tyrion laughs.  “Considering I do not have to ride a dragon again, I think I’m already getting the better end of things.”

...

The Queen arrives in Highgarden with two dragons and one Crown Prince. 

Willas has met the Queen before, but has never seen dragons.  They are as fearsome as Maester Lomys told him they were, and he can feel Sansa shiver beside him.  He wants so desperately to take her hand and hold it, but there will be a time for that – later, once the Queen approves their marriage.

Sansa stands tall next to him – she is the one they’ve come for, after all.  The Queen and Prince Aegon will dine with them tonight, and then the three of them will leave for the North in the morning.  Other than the shiver when the dragons first arrived, Sansa has not mentioned any fear of riding a dragon, but rather a fear of seeing her sister again.

“ _Why is the Queen taking you to Winterfell?” he asks as Sansa repacks her belongings in a smaller bag that could be carried on a dragon’s back._

_“She looks like my aunt,” Sansa says, “and Arya has always been stubborn.  The North is apparently assembling around her in Winterfell.”_

_“Do you think she would declare herself Queen in the North?” Willas asks.  Sansa stops packing._

_“Absolutely,” she tells him.  “Without a doubt.  Despite the fact that our house is now connected to the Targaryens,  the Queen’s father killed my grandfather and my uncle.  My father rose in open rebellion.  There’s bad blood between the two houses that not even Jon’s existence will cure.”_

_Sansa fingers a heavy traveling robe – one that will not be heavy enough for Winterfell, so the seamstresses are quickly making a new one on the order of Lord Tyrell – and sighs.  “But...” she says, stepping closer to him, “we can speak with the Queen and ask her blessing on our marriage.”_

_She cups his face in her hands, and presses a gently kiss on his lips.  His hands find her hips and pull her closer._

_“But what if the Queen doesn’t agree to a union between our two houses?” Willas asks.  Sansa sighs against his lips._

_“We’ll see,” she tells him, leaning in to kiss him again._

The Queen approaches, and Willas bows.  To his right, Sansa curtseys. 

“Your Grace,” Willas says.  “Welcome to Highgarden.”

“It is quite beautiful, Lord Tyrell and I was glad to see the many fields being tended for the harvest,” the Queen says with a smile.  “I am glad that I have come to the Reach, but wish it was under different circumstances.”

“Of course, your Grace” Willas says with another bow.  The Queen turns to Sansa.

“Lady Stark,” she says, “you have heard the news of your sister.  As I am very fond of you, I am eager to reunite you with her.”

“For that I am grateful, your Grace,” Sansa says.  The Prince, having finally eased down from his dragon, joins the Queen, and Willas suddenly does not like the thought of having Sansa ride with the prince on their journey.  He pushes back his bitterness, and smiles while Sansa asks to speak privately to the Queen.

Once inside Highgarden, Sansa indicates that Lord Tyrell will join them, and that his solar would be the best location for their talk.  If the Queen is at all curious about Sansa’s request, her expression does not show it – instead, she remains calm and composed, even amused as Spirit follows her, nipping at the Queen’s fingertips so that she may receive a scratch behind the ears.

The Prince falls under Margaery’s care, and she offers to take him to the kennels and the stables.  Willas cannot tell if it is Margaery herself or the prospect of a tour of the best-known kennels and stables that appeals to the Prince more, but he seems to go willingly.

“Your Grace,” Sansa starts once the door is closed, “there is a matter I would like to settle before I am to go to Winterfell.”

“And Lord Tyrell is privy to this matter?” the Queen asked, looking intrigued.  Sansa nods.  She looks calm and composed, and Willas envies her – he is nervous, and quaking like a young child who has stolen sweets from the kitchen.

 “My Queen, before I was married to Lord Tyrion, I was promised in marriage to Lord Tyrell.  Sadly, our union was prevented, yet the affection that we bear each other has not waned.  He has made an offer for my hand, and I have accepted.  We only wish your blessing,” Sansa tells the Queen.

It is an artfully constructed story of missed opportunity and broken promises and regret.  It is skillfully told by Sansa, though Willas is not surprised.  Instead, he feels his heart pounding in his ears as the Queen studies both him and Sansa.

“You would forsake your claim to Winterfell?” she asks.

“I have already forsaken it for my younger brother,” Sansa explains.  “I would forsake it again for my sister.  I have already chosen my home, and it is here.”

“And you, Lord Tyrell? You seem awfully quiet on this matter.  Is this match to your liking?”

Willas swallows, and takes a deep breath.  “Above all things, your Grace.”

“The joining of two great houses such as yours would be no small matter,” the Queen says.  “It would place your sister as the heir of Winterfell.”

“My cousin is in Winterfell as well,” Sansa points out.  The Queen sighs.

“There are rumors from the North, and I am very eager to see for myself if they are true.  I will do this – if I agree to your marriage, will you leave with me tonight, once the dragons are rested?”

Sansa shakes her head.  “Of course I will!”

The Queen gives them both a small smile.  “Let us head north, then.”

Willas blinks, unable to believe that this is truly happening, and he cannot say much because Sansa has found his way into his arms and is kissing him.


	13. Winterfell, Again

**Winterfell Again**

The North is much colder than Sansa remembers – colder than the Vale, much colder than the Reach.   She wraps her cloak around her tighter.  She has been frozen solid since the flight here, and she wishes nothing more than a hot bath and some warm cider.

That will not happen until she sees Arya, she fears. 

Jon, Rickon, and the Northern lords assembled at Winterfell bow before the Queen, the Prince, and their dragons, but there is a coldness in their tone that is different than Sansa remembers.  However, they welcome her with open arms, as the eldest child of Ned Stark.  There are glances as she walks closely with the Queen, and an air of suspicion that was not here before.  Has Arya created all this?

Yet Arya is nowhere to be found.

“Where is she?” Sansa asks Jon as he escorts the party into the castle.  Jon shakes his head.

“Somewhere – perhaps in the Godswood.  She disappears for hours on end, then reappears with no explanation.”  Jon looks tired, and she wonders how just what sort of burden has been placed on his shoulders.

He follows her into her chamber – her old chamber, the one she had when she was a girl, though none of the furniture is the same and the walls have been scrubbed clean from the fire – and closes the door behind him.

“Arya seems to draw people to her,” Jon says.  “Northern lords who were fine with the terms of the peace, and fine with me, are now agitated by her very presence.”  He sighs.  “They do not like the fact that I am a Targaryen.”

“You are a Stark,” Sansa reminds him.  She does not like hearing this.  “You were Commander of the Night’s Watch.”

“I am a bastard, Sansa.  I will never be something other than that, not in the eyes of the kingdom and especially not in the eyes of the North.”  Jon smiles meekly.  “I think my life was easier when I was just Ned Stark’s bastard, not...”

He trails off.  “She doesn’t talk open rebellion, and I don’t think she wants that, or Winterfell.  But the Northern lords come, because she is one of Ned Stark’s children.  They come because there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.”

“What does she want?” Sansa asks, uncomfortable with the fact that the North does not think Jon to be a Stark.  Something must be done about that.

“She wants her family back.”  Jon turns towards the door.  “But there’s no way to bring back the dead.  It’s the living that we worry about, and it’s the living that we need to concern ourselves with.”

As Jon leaves, Sansa feels the tremendous weight of all her sorrow for her family press down on her once more.  Has she been selfish, to indulge herself at Highgarden?  Is she needed more here, in the North, where she belongs?  There is an ache inside her that grows as she walks through the halls, down the stairs, through the keep, to the godswood. 

Sansa remembers her youth here.  She remembers her mother and her father and Robb and Bran and all those lost in the war.  She feels their ghosts around her with every step, a growing, growling chill that seeps into her bones and makes her pull her cloak tighter.  She has never faced them, not entirely, always pushing them down deep inside.  Her father’s death, Robb’s and Mother’s, they were the deaths of traitors or so she said.  They were not right, but it was war. 

Sansa knows that she said what she needed to say to survive.  There is little more to it that than.  And yet, you can only push things down inside you for so long until they rise back up to the top, threatening to overpower you.

For someone who was never very good at playing the game of thrones, she’s become surprisingly competent.

She stops in the godswood, heart beating fast, eyes full of tears.  She takes a deep breath.

“Ayra?” she calls.

There is movement beside the heart tree, and Arya approaches.  She is so much taller than she was – nearly as tall as Sansa.  Her face is still long, but with a strange beauty very unlike Sansa’s own.  She had heard the stories about Arya resembling her aunt – she wonders how true it is.  There is a wildness in Arya that has only grown in their years apart, and her eyes dart from side to side, taking in the grounds as if there are creatures lurking in the shadows.

“Did you come alone?”

Sansa sighs in exasperation. “Of course I did, silly.  I do not have guards around me.”

Arya is still far away.  “You did before.”

“They were never mine,” Sansa tells her.  She looks at her sister – just looks at her, and the woman she’s become.

They circle each other like the wolves they are, testing for weakness.

“You came with the Queen,” Arya points out.  “You live in Kings Landing.”

“The Queen knew I missed my sister,” Sansa parries.  “The Queen comforted me when Lady Brienne of Tarth brought me Father’s blade.”

“They said you were with the Imp.”

“Tyrion has been the only person to protect me against all of them, Lannisters and the rest.”  Sansa’s voice is quiet where Arya’s is angry and loud.  Her blood thunders through her veins, her sense are on high alert despite her even tone.  Arya’s teeth are on edge.

They always did fight like animals, much to Father’s chagrin, but the same blood runs through each of their veins. 

“Where did you go?” Arya asks.  Her eyes are dark.  “What happened to you?”

“Petyr Baelish took me to the Vale, to our aunt and our cousin.”

“And Littlefinger?”

“I took him to his grave.  Where did you go?”

“To Braavos.”  Arya stops moving.  “Were you sare in the Vale?”

Sansa stops moving as well.  “As safe as I could be.  I don’t think there was a place in the seven kingdoms where the daughters of Ned Stark would be safe, until the Queen came.”

Arya does not say anything.  Sansa draws closer.  “They say that you are having the North rise in rebellion against the throne.”  Arya pouts.

“I am doing nothing of the sort.  You know the North hates bending the knee to anyone who is not a Stark.”

Sansa is an arm’s length from Arya.  There is nothing she wants more than to reach out and hold her sister, but her sister is still on edge, still rabid with fear or anger or any of the other emotions that Sansa feels so well, here in her family home.  Arya frowns.

“Why did you leave? Why did you go to Kings Landing?”

Sansa looks away from Arya, at the snow-packed ground.  “Because it hurts too much to be here.”

“But it’s your home.”

Arya’s voice is small and hurt, and Sansa can feel every word like a blade through her heart.  She has wondered, for longer than she’s admitted, if Winterfell was her home.  If she had abandoned it, and Rickon, too soon.  If perhaps she shouldn’t have gone to Kings Landing.

But if she hadn’t gone, she would not have met Willas, and she would have been miserable here alone (Jon would have left, he would have gone to the Wall or stayed in the capital and given her Winterfell) and she does not regret it now that she knows what her future holds.

“It was my home,” Sansa says softly.  “For a very long time, it’s all I dreamed of and all I wanted.  But I have a new home now.  You, though – the North needs the Starks.”

“Where will you go?” Arya asks angrily, more of a shout than a question.  Sansa reaches for her sister’s hand, grasps at her fingers.

“I will go to Highgarden,” she tells Arya.  “I will marry Lord Willas of House Tyrell.  I will live in the Reach as Lady Tyrell, and you will be Lady Stark of Winterfell, Protector of the North.”  Sansa squeezes her sister’s hand.  “And you will be glorious and fierce and just and you will bend the knee because dragons can eat wolves whole.”

Arya laughs, and with that laugh falls into Sansa’s arms and they both fall into the snow.  Her weight is a heavy burden, but Sansa is willing to bear it.  She holds her sister close and presses a kiss against her forehead, grateful for the arms around her.

“Will you really go to the Reach?” Arya asks quietly.

“I will.  And you must really be mindful of the Targaryens.  Aegon thinks you look like Aunt Lyanna and he’s fascinated by the woman who stole his Father way.”

“Little creep,” Arya grumbles, and Sansa laughs.  “He is!”

“He is Jon’s brother.  Jon is a Targaryen, and that makes our houses bound.  You must keep the peace, for Jon’s sake.  We cannot rob him of more family.  We are all he has.”

They are silent.  The snow begins to fall.

“Do you love him? The one you will marry?” Arya asks softly.

Sansa smiles.  “I do.”

“Then I am happy for you.”  Arya shifts out of her arms, stands up.  She reaches for Sansa. “And I cannot let you die of a cold now before your wedding.”

Grinning, Sansa takes her sister’s hand. “Race you to the hall,” she says, taking off.  Behind her Ayra shouts in frustration but Sansa knows her sister is not really mad.  The winter air whips at her cheeks, and she almost loses her furs, but she feels free and light for the first time in a very long time.


	14. Epilogue: Highgarden

Epilogue: Highgarden

The wedding takes place when the roses first begin to bud.  It’s fitting, Jon thinks, that Sansa would marry at the first breath of spring.   She will begin her new life in the South, and she will blossom here.  He is happy for his cousin on this day.

...

When Arya bent the knee to the Queen, the North followed.  With Sansa’s announcement that she would go to the Reach to marry Willas Tyrell,  Arya because the oldest of Ned Stark’s children in the North but she refused to become Warden of the North.

“I do not want the responsibility,” she told Jon.  “You are far better at this than me.”

And so in Winterfell she remained, spending her hours training Rickon in whatever she learned in Braavos, much to Jon’s chagrin (Rickon, wild enough already, is now even worse that Arya has taught him to be so silent).

His aunt and brother, once again, tried to lure him to Kings Landing with promises to family and title, but he refused.  His family was with him in Winterfell again, even if they were a bit different than others.

And Arya is the only one Rickon will let cut his hair, or wash him, so there is that to be thankful for.

Sansa stayed in Winterfell for some time until the party left for Kings Landing, where the dresses that she ordered were ready for her – lighter garments than the North, which Arya fingered carefully lest they rip on contact.

“The Reach is warmer,” Sansa told them with a small smile. “There is more rain, but it is warmer.  That is why so much food is grown there.  Even in winter there is no snow.”

“Will you be happy there?” Arya insisted on asking constantly, even though Sansa had spent hours assuring Arya this was what she wanted, that this had been something long  expected, that they were supposed to marry before she married the Hand, but the Lannisters had prevented that.

“I don’t supposed to would have loved him the same way, but I would have been happy,” she told Arya as she packed her trunks.  “You will love the Reach – Willas has the best dogs, and horses and falcons.”

And the mention of birds, Arya and Rickon mysteriously became silent, then started asking about the animals.  Jon tried not to laugh.

...

On the day of the wedding, Jon is summoned to Sansa’s chambers.  It is Lady Margaery who finds him and brings him.  He has never met her before, only heard tales of her beauty, and he finds that he is still tongue-tied when she tries to make polite conversation with her.  She smiles accommodatingly as she knocks on Sansa’s door, then lets him enter.

Sansa is speaking with Tyrion.  Their conversation seems to be very intense, but the Hand takes notice of Jon.  He kisses Sansa’s hand briefly.

“May you be happy in your new life,” he tells her.  She smiles, and he turns to leave.  It is then that Sansa turns to Jon.

She is dressed in a white dress with gold, black, and green embroidery on her cuffs – the colors of her old house, and her new.  She looks happier than he’s ever seen her, and it makes him smile.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Sansa says quietly. “Would you escort me?”

Jon smiles.  “I would be most honored, but – “

“Stop this right now, Jon Stark.”  Her tone becomes serious.  “You are a Stark just as much as you are a Targaryen.  You are my family, and I want you to escort me to my husband.”

There are tears in her eyes, and she wipes them away.  “The first time I was married, Joffrey escorted me as King and Father of the Realm – because he took my own father’s head, of course.  This time, I want family.”

Jon reaches out a hand for hers.  She takes it, and squeezes it.

“They would have been proud of you,” he tells her.  She smiles.

“They would have been proud of all of us,” she says. “Come, help me with this cloak.”

The direwolf cloak  - with teeth and eyes made of mother of pearl – is heavy.  “How will you walk with this?” he asks her jokingly.  She shrugs.

“That is why you are here to help me.”  She smiles, so happy on this day, and Jon feels lighter. For a family so struck by grief, he is glad she is no longer sad.

There are many who have come to Highgarden for the wedding, including the Queen and Prince Aegon, who stares at Arya in such a way that Jon feels he might have to speak to his brother soon.  He knows it is morbid curiousity, but he does not appreciate Arya being ogled.  For what it’s worth, he does enjoy the time he spends with the Targaryens, because for someone who was never claimed by anyone, having two Houses is a novel and pleasing thought.

The Hand is there too, and from what Jon gathers, this is because the bond between him and Sansa is quite friendly, and strong.  Lord Willas does not seem to mind – he is a kind, quiet man, and he is absolutely devoted to Sansa and her happiness.

They take their places behind the door of the sept.  Margaery brushes by them, taking time to give Sansa a kiss before sneaking through the door.  There is some sadness in her eyes that Jon recognizes – the sadness of being alone, the sadness he wore as a bastard – and it is somewhat confusing to him that such a lovely girl would be so sad.

The doors open, and all rise.  Slowly, he walks Sansa towards the septon and her husband.

Willas stares at Sansa as if she is the only one in the room.  When Jon looks over at his cousin, her eyes are fixed on her husband as well.  There is no one else for them today, and there will never be, and it is such a love that Jon is instantly envious of people who have found that.  He thinks of Ygritte, and immediately stops.  That is still a fresh wound in many ways.

The ceremony is beautiful, the bride and bridegroom happy, and the wine flows.   Jon helps himself to several cups, and finds himself on the edge of the hall, watching Sansa and Willas as they speak to their guests.   There is such an easiness between them that Jon wonders if that is part of love.

“They make a lovely couple,” a voice says to his left.  He turns, and is surprised to find Lady Margaery approach, also holding a cup of wine.  “They complete each other, which is an enviable situation.”

“Have you been in love, Lady Margaery?” Jon asks.  Margaery purses her lips and shakes her head.

“I have been married, Lord Stark, but I have never loved.  I have done my duty to my family, but I have never done my duty to myself.”  She takes a sip of her wine. “As I grow older, I find there is a stark difference between the two.”  She takes a moment, then laughs.  “No pun intended, my lord.”

“And no offense taken,” Jon says with a smile.  Margaery turns to him.

“Have you loved someone, my lord?”

Jon takes a long drink from his cup.  “Once, I thought I did.  But things were different then, and she is gone.”

Margaery, to her credit, knows how to look sympathetic, and Jon appreciates her discretion.   “I am happy that Sansa is happy,” Jon tells her.  “And that she has found her home here in Highgarden.  The Reach is as lovely as I’ve heard.”

Margaery smiles.  “I am happy for them as well, but you do not need to flatter me about my home, my lord.  Everyone’s home is beautiful in their eyes.”

Her smile is distracting.  “So should I not flatter you, Lady Margaery?” he asks.  “You seem like a woman whose very character is deserving of flattery.”

Margaery’s smile grows, and Jon sees some of the sadness leaving her eyes.  He takes a moment, then plunges forward.

“Have you ever been to the North, Lady Margaery?” he asks, feeling foolish, but the smile he gets in return is worth his folly.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read what was originally meant to be a much shorter story. I hope I've done Sansa and Willas justice, for your sake.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you joely_jo and thirddeadlysin for giving it a once-over!


End file.
